


An Apostle of the Lord

by tiwaki



Series: An Apostle of the Lord [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-01-05 19:00:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 39
Words: 55,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12195771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiwaki/pseuds/tiwaki





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m expecting crocodiles to come charging at us,” said Dean, looking around at the swampy landscape they were wading through. The Winchester brothers were demon hunting in northern Arkansas, with angel Castiel walking somberly behind them.

“You won’t find crocodiles this far north,” assured his brother Sam. “And even if there were, they wouldn’t be crocodiles. They’d be alligators.”

“I’m so assured.” It mattered not to Dean, actually. He was armed for anything--demon or monstrous creature.

“True. You guys need to watch for rattlesnakes.” Sam and Dean looked up to see a stranger. With large ears and bulbous nose, thinning white hair and unremarkable features that defied placing an age on him, it wasn’t surprising they hadn’t noticed him. But the bright red jacked-up Jeep he was sitting on the hood of should have drawn their attention from far away. And the back road it sat on would’ve been much more convenient than the long hike they had taken, but Dean wasn’t going to let ‘Baby’ get that muddy.

“You’re Sam and Dean Winchester and you’re looking for Angie Barton. But I need her instead.” The stranger noticed Castiel coming up behind them. “I don’t know you.”

Castiel considered the situation and announced, “I’m Castiel, an angel of the Lord.”

“Small world, I’m Timothy, an apostle of the Lord. I can draw out demons, speak in tongues, and at parties I can walk across your pool and change the water into whiskey.” Satisfied that those words were sufficient, the stranger turned his attention back to Sam and Dean. “I’m here for Angie. Her body hasn’t been possessed for long and her soul wants it back. I’m here to arrange that.”

“There she is.” Castiel pointed towards Sam and Dean, who turned to look behind themselves--in time to see the familiar dark smoky essence being drawn from her mouth and eyes. It passed between them and gathered into a black rubber-looking ball in “Timothy’s” upraised hand.

“Hold this Dean. Don’t squeeze it.” The stranger handed the object to Dean and walked on to Angie, leaving Dean to roll the ball over and over in his hand. Dean wondered if it could somehow possess him, but nothing happened. He looked to Sam who just shrugged his shoulders.

The stranger took Angie to his Jeep, helped her up into the vehicle, and went to the back to rummage through the boxes stashed there. “Coffee or hot chocolate?”

“Hmm?”

“Coffee or hot chocolate?” The stranger held up a thermos.

“Coffee?”

“Okay” The stranger opened the thermos stuck his finger in and walked around the Jeep. “It’s smells good and strong. You like it black?”

“No. Maybe hot chocolate?”

“Can do.” He cheerfully took the thermos back and, out of sight, poked his finger in the thermos again and returned to the woman. “Hot chocolate. Sorry, no marshmallows.” He handed the thermos to her and pointed out a cup for her to pour the drink into.

As Angie sipped from the cup and expressed her approval over the former-coffee-now-chocolate, “Timothy” looked back towards the brothers.

Sam was poking fun over Dean being stuck holding the squishy Demon ball, and stepped back for more room to dodge if Dean decided to throw the black mass at him. He stepped into a deep mucky spot and brought his foot up minus his boot. “Aw, man! I lost my shoe!” Castiel leaned over the hole pondering over whether he really wanted to reach in to retrieve it.

“Am I going to have to start tying your shoes for you again?” Dean laughed so hard at the sight he squeezed the glob too tightly and it splurted black goo all over his face and body.

“I know a circus that’d appreciate this clown troupe,” the stranger whispered to Angie. She smiled faintly, still not totally recovered from her possession. He walked back to the rear of the Jeep and rummaged through boxes again, this time pulling out a box of plastic bags.

The stranger walked over to Castiel, who had finally decided to swish his hand around in the muck and pulled out Sam’s boot. “Put the boot in this bag, Castiel. Sam, put this one around your foot. Angie! Move into the back seat. Sam’s coming with us. You’re on your own Dean; you smell like swine farts and I’m not gonna try to clean the smell outta my Jeep.”

He did walk over to Dean and ran a finger through the goo on Dean’s face. The black mass pulled onto the stranger’s finger and, after the rest was collected from the Dean’s clothes in the same manner, it recollected into a ball in the stranger’s hand. This time it became firmer, then became glassy and watery, then finally evaporated totally into the air. He turned and walked back to his Jeep. “Come on, Sam. I’ve gotta get Angie back in contact with her family.”

Soon Dean and Castiel began their trek back to Dean’s car. Dean looked back to see the red Jeep departing, with a woman’s blond hair showing through the back window, both of Sam’s bare feet sticking out the passenger window, and something sounding horrifically like jazz band music wafting out of the open top.

“Timothy, an apostle of the Lord?” Dean said sarcastically to Castiel.

“He told the truth,” replied Castiel. They continued on and considered what had just happened.


	2. Chapter 2

“Timothy, an apostle of the Lord?” Riding in the Jeep, Sam was quick to change the music to his liking. Dean would never allow him to choose the music in his car, but the stranger didn’t care.

“Well, sort of. My name is Edward Timms. Call me Eddie.” Noting Sam’s gesture he should embellish, Timothy-now-Eddie continued.

”First, give me the pencil in your pocket.” Sam looked down, located his lead pencil, and passed it over, and Eddie tucked it behind his ear.

“I’m the current incarnation of one of the apostles trained in miracles by Christ. Not Timothy in the Bible. That’s someone else. Some buddy of apostle Paul’s. Really nice guy but not an apostle. I was one of the hundred-and-twenty who were trained to perform miracles and then use the occasions to convince our audiences we had the authority to pass on the truths we were taught.”

“But, I’m not here to teach anything this lifetime. I’m just here to fix some unnecessary suffering by good people today. Angie here had more to accomplish in this life and being compromised by a demon was going to ruin everything. Make sense, Angie?”

“No?,” came a weak reply from in back. She was confused.

“That’s okay. You won’t remember all this anyway.” That did not help her confusion.

Eddie continued, “Anyway, tomorrow I get to part waters to prevent a drowning. The victim’s husband was supposed to suffer his loss of family as an example to followers of his, but the followers who needed to witness his suffering took a different path, so to say. So, the wife’s death, and maybe the son’s, would be pointless. If I succeed, the family will continue as a unit in some hopefully greater cause.” I’ve always succeeded. No brag, I bumble along and it works out right. Timothy tells me all I need to know and all I need to have on hand. And most of the time it was a good thing. Most of the time.”

Parting waters. That reminded Sam of what Eddie had said in the swamp. “You said you could turn water into whiskey?” he asked. “Have you actually done that?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” Sam leaned in.

“In Lebanon, Kansas.” Eddied thought for a moment, then smiled and continued. “I expected Dean to react to that comment back there and he didn’t. What are you thinking?”

“Well, when I was a kid, Dean went to a pool party in Lebanon. I was too young to go. And I remember Dad getting a call and he grabbed me and said, “Let’s go.” And we got in the car and drove to the party. When we got there, Dean was laughing and drunk out of his gourd. He said some guy stood on the water in the middle of the pool and yelled, ‘Let’s party! The drinks are on me!” and the pool water turned into whiskey. Dean drank a lot. I guess he was an alcoholic from the start. But, anyway, when Dad and I went behind the fence, the pool was just normal pool water. Dean says he doesn’t remember when I tease him about it. But, I know what I saw and Dean was really really drunk for being at a party serving only soda and punch.”

“Okay. That makes sense,” said Eddie. “You didn’t see the miracle so you remember. But Dean did see, so as far as he will ever know is no such thing happened, just that he got drunk. As to why I was at the party, there was a youngster I was to prevent drowning in the pool at the height of the celebration and I couldn’t keep track of her the whole time. I couldn’t risk having the child return unnoticed and drown. So I changed the situation. Most gross things I could have changed the water to would only make it more interesting for her family. But a pool full of whiskey was different; the parents felt she shouldn’t be in the presence of alcohol and left for home. Hey, it worked, the child was gone for good, go figure.”

“Just like back there with the demon. Ask your brother when you see him and he won’t recall what happened or of some white-haired guy with a Jeep being there. He’s probably just now beginning to wonder where you are and exactly what happened. He might even rationalize that he killed the demon you guys were going after. Castiel might remember. He’s really an angel, right?”

“Now, you remember so far because you’re still with me. After I’m gone you’ll forget, too. It comes with the gift I have. Things work out that I always fade from the witnesses’ memories after I perform a miracle. They aren’t for my glory, it’s the Lord’s. It’s probably safe that I can’t develop a following. I don’t have the training, I don’t have the authority to spread the Word on my own name. Oh, that reminds me...Angie! What are you hungry for? Pizza?”

“Okay.” Her voice was getting stronger and the conversation had piqued her interest. She was peeking around the back of Eddie’s seat, trying to read his expressions, looking for some sign that he was just blowing hot air.

Eddie pulled over the Jeep in the next parking spot and pulled out his smartphone. At the answer at the other end he spoke, “Hey! Arn we found your wife and are headed into town. Can you meet us at the pizza place downtown? Good. Moment...Angie what do you want on your pizza?” He handed the phone back to Angie.

After the conversation, he took the phone back, “I suppose you should order now. We’ll join you there in about ... twenty minutes. Angie’s hungry. Right?”

“Right!” Angie sounded much better at the prospect of food and seeing her husband.

The couple was united. Sam and Eddie joined them for the meal and, after accepting many thank-you-so-muches, they climbed back into the Jeep. As far as Arnie and Angie seemed to accept, it was a simple lost-in-the-woods situation and Angie was safe, so nothing else mattered. The search was over and so was this mission.

“Okay,” said Eddie. “She’s going home to Oklahoma. I now have a second reserved room free at my next stop this side of Tulsa. You haven’t called your brother. See if he and Castiel want to stay at the Downy Lake Inn for free on their way back to Kansas. You can witness my next miracle tomorrow! I always like to show off when I can. You won’t remember by the time you reach Kansas, but still, it’d be cool.”

Eddie handed back the pencil from above his ear while Sam pulled out his smartphone to call his brother and confirm lodging plans. Sam took the pencil and looked it over. It was gold. Solid gold. Heavy like gold. Sam looked over at Eddie. He was getting an eerie feeling about what was going to happen tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 3

Downy Lake Inn was actually on Downs Lake--a result of the Downs family living on the west side of the lake and the Downy family having property along the east side. The naming rights didn’t get sorted out until after the Inn had been several years in existence. The complex was living quarters, a bar, a burger stand, and a small grocery along the lake shore. It all surrounded a dirt parking lot formed around some playground equipment and overlooked a pea gravel beach along the lake’s edge.

When Dean and Castiel arrived, Sam and Eddie were looking over the lake as Eddie explained where on the lake the mishap was predicted to happen, that a storm was to arrive and who would be present on the beach at the time. Eddie took them to the rooms in front of his Jeep, opening one door and motioning the others through the connecting hall towards the other room.

A stray cat slipped in and followed the brothers, hoping for a handout.

Dean checked the fridge in the other room, “Any beer at the store? Hey! Outta here!”

The cat dashed back down the hall to pester the other two.

“I’ll make a list,” Sam pulled out a tablet of paper and the gold pencil, then looked for something he could actually write with.

The brothers could hear Eddie and Castiel at the other end of the hallway.

“You were there while Christ walked the Earth then,” Castiel began the questioning.

“Yes. In my previous life I was at a couple of the sermons. And after the resurrection I was one of the followers called to pass the Word. We trained, confirmed our allegiance to the Lord and were given gifts. We all could draw out demons. I can do that now, but since swine aren’t handy nowadays and I’m squeamish about killing animals anyway, I was given the ability to change the chemical makeup of anything I can touch. So I can draw the demon to me and I remake it into something tangible and then nothing. It’s gone.”

“And we all could speak in tongues. One person was to go into a trance and speak the words through the Holy Spirit. The other translated it to the language of whomever the message was intended for. My partner didn’t incarnate this lifetime. But, thanks to this day of digital recorders, I worked around that by turning on a recorder, my soul “Timothy” speaks to me during my trance, and I understand the words later played on the recorder.”

“My ability to change the chemical make-up of things and move liquids by touching it was especially for me. My own personal gift for performing miracles. But it comes with responsibilities.”

Castiel nodded and thought for a minute. “I was there at the Lord’s birth!”

Eddie was impressed. “Wow...In the choir?”

“No!” Castiel was taken aback and it showed. “I’m a warrior! My battalion guarded the Holy Family!”

That’s when Sam and Dean noticed a bright light shining down the hallway and a rumble like thunder building up.

Then it stopped and all was very quiet.

Eddie walked into their room looking a bit embarrassed. “Um. There’s a problem.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other puzzled and back towards Eddie. “What?”

“Well, Castiel surprised me and he is now in this cat. And someone named “Jimmy” in the next room is hungry.”

“Jimmy Novak? What? How?” Sam asked. Jimmy Novak, now back in his own body entered the room.

Eddie backed away. “Castiel became agitated and I sorta went into protective mode! Couldn’t be helped! I’ll talk to Timothy and get them traded back.

“Whatever.” Sam grabbed Jimmy’s arm and headed out the front door. “I’m going shopping anyway. I’ll take him to get hamburgers on the way. You guys figure out how to fix this.”

Eddie carried the cat back to his room.

When Sam and Jimmy returned, Dean was leaning against the wall in the hallway watching Eddie. Eddie was lying on the bed in a trance with the cat on his chest watching him intently. A recorder was on. They heard a deep and controlled voice coming from Eddie.

Dean returned to their room. “Okay. This guy accidentally ( with finger quotes) sucked Cas out of his body and into a cat and some supernatural voice is now telling him how to put Cas back. Or is he getting instructions to destroy the world? Where did you dig up this crazy, Sam? I’m worried about what he can do.”

“I didn’t dig him up. He sucked out the demon back in Arkansas, remember? I left with him.”

“Nooooo. I would remember some guy doing an exorcism. We killed that demon--wait! You left with him? I definitely would have remembered that!” Then a pause while Dean tried to sort out in his head what had happened in the swamp that morning.

“Okay,” Dean began again, “You didn’t leave with Cas and me. That makes sense...but...I had to wash out demon stench. I didn’t kill it?”

“No,” said Sam, “Eddie drew out the demon like what he just did with Cas and you squished it.” Sam smirked at the memory. “And the girl was okay. We took her to where her husband was waiting. Eddie had organized all of it. I guess he was right. He said you wouldn’t remember.”

“Come on Jimmy, you’re going back to your loved ones in Heaven,” called Eddie from his room. He handed the cat to Jimmy, stepped back and said, “Done!,” and turned back to Dean and Sam. “It turns out I really don’t have to do anything. Castiel already has Jimmy’s permission, so he can just pop back in himself.”

They all waited a few seconds until Castiel finally spoke from Jimmy’s body, “I guess I’m back.”


	4. Chapter 4

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 4

When Sam awoke the next morning, Dean was leaning against the hallway wall again looking into Eddie’s room. There Eddie was in a trance on the bed again. This time the voice was conversing with Castiel who stood there fascinated. The language must have been Enochian because Castiel spoke back in the same language.

“You say this guy is going to perform a miracle this morning?” Dean said over his shoulder.

“That’s what he says. Let’s go get breakfast.”

They headed out.

Later, Eddie joined them. And Castiel with cat in hand.

“You can’t bring that in the restaurant, Cas,” said Dean, and Cas took it back out.

“Howard Downy is here. I’ll be chatting with him after breakfast,” said Eddie. His wife and son are across the lake.” He ordered several cheese toasties, piled them in a stack, and headed out with them in hand.

Cas entered at the same time. “I left it by the car. I want to take it back with us.”

“No,” said Dean.

“But...I’m bonded with it!”

“I’m not having some flea-bitten cat at the bunker! No!”

“It’s not flea-bitten. I picked them all out.”

“No!”

Sam, smiled. Castiel was going to lose this battle to Dean no matter what, but he admired his moxy.

Soon the three headed out to the beach where Eddie was talking with a tall black-haired man. A small group of people sat on the benches nearby.

“Sam! Dean!,” called out Eddie. “Howard, these are the Winchester brothers from the room next to mine. And that’s Cas. He’s a bit standoffish but he’s cool. Guys, this is Howard Downy. He and his wife Doris are organizing funding for the orphanage up the road from here. They want to renovate it and try bringing up the kids with some techniques they learned in schooling low-esteemed children in Oklahoma City. Doris and their son are out there right now, coming across the lake.”

Eddie pointed across Downs Lake where they could see a small boat oar-propelled by a tall lady. A young boy hung over the side of the boat, swishing the water with his hand.

Sam looked up to the sky. Warm, sunny and quiet. No sign of rain. All looked placid.

“I hear this place specializes in kids with emotional and health problems like seizures,” said Eddie.

“Funny you should mention seizures,” said Howard. “Doris had epileptic seizures when she was young. It’s under control now. But that was what inspired her to start an organization to catch children with such problems and fix them while they’re still young. I share that vision. I couldn’t do it without her, though.”

“I’m sure you could have done it,” said Eddie. “I’m glad you won’t have to.”

That reminded Sam of his earlier conversation with Eddie on the beach. He felt a breeze and noticed the sky was darkening. That was sudden! Ripples began skating across the surface of the lake. He noticed Eddie walk over to the bench and pull off his shoes and socks.

“I have to be in contact with the water,” Eddie explained to Sam. He leaned back and wiggled his toes. He smiled at Sam. It was happening.

The waves grew rougher and there was a rumble of thunder in the distance. Others on the beach were at the shoreline watching the boat with unease. Dean was with them.

Doris Downy in the boat watched the storm coming in. Her son Danny was rowing and she told him to let her take over because they would need to go faster to reach the beach before the rain started. It wasn’t going to be a terrible storm but one shouldn’t be on the lake in case there’s lightning.

Danny released the oars and backed off to let his mother take over. She stood up and froze. He watched her standing there wobbling slightly. There was a look in her eyes like she wasn’t focusing on anything and she leaned forward a bit.

“Mom! Mom!” Danny panicked. He had seen her in an epileptic seizure before and recognized it coming on.

Doris swayed to the side and the fell into the lake.

“Mom!” Danny climbed over the boat’s side and jumped in after her.

From the shore someone called out, “I can’t see anyone in the boat!” The boat was floating slowly in the wrong direction and there was now no sign of anyone in it.

Dean jumped up, pulled off his shoes, socks and shirt and ran into the water. The waves were rough but not impossible for him to swim in. But he was afraid there would be nobody to find when he got to the boat.

A strange sensation came over Dean. The water had changed around him. A stretch from the beach behind him to the rowboat seemed firmer. Its surface became smooth, unlike the rough water on either side. He heard a ‘pat, pat, pat’ behind him.

A pair of bare feet passed his head. Eddie was running ahead of him along the smooth stretch. He was literally running on the water.


	5. Chapter 5

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 5

By the time Eddie arrived at the rowboat it had floated off to the side quite a distance. That was okay. He wouldn’t need it.

There was no sign of Doris or Danny. Eddie paused and looked around. He forced the firm surface to widen, smoothing out the rough waves around him. He walked in a small circle, then a larger one.

There! A shadow below the surface. Eddie lowered onto his hands and knees and then reached down under the surface. A hand. It tightened around his and Eddie pulled up. Danny gasped and began treading the water on his own.

“Mom!” Danny called. No other body was visible.

“Take my hand, Danny,” said Eddie. “It’ll be alright. We’re going after your mother right now.”

Eddie placed his other hand on the surface of the lake and the surface around them slowly lowered.

“Look into the water around us, Danny. Your mom’s in there somewhere.”

As the firm surface moved down further, the watery sides appeared to rise up around them. Fish could be seen. A boat oar floated nearby, suspended in the water’s depth.

Before long, Danny saw a moving human form. Doris was now alert and struggling under the water.

“Keep close,” said Eddie. “We’re going after her.” He pressed a hand against the wall of water and it gave. It moved back. Eddie pushed and it moved further. Step by step they approached the struggling figure until the water wall reached her and she fell through it onto the flat surface at their feet. She was gasping but was soon alright.

The three looked up where the sky could be seen through a circle far above them.

“You’re witnessing a miracle, Doris” Eddie said. Don’t try to figure it out. You and Danny are in the Lord’s hands. You’ll be fine.”

The two nodded and remained calm, considering the impossible situation they found themselves in.

“Well, the boat has floated away. So, if we rise back up, we will have to swim,” Eddie smiled. “Or shall we walk there this way?” He pressed against the wall of water and forced it to move.

Doris looked around and looked down and looked up. Finally, she pointed towards the impression Eddie made in the wall.

“Good choice!” said Eddie, “You’ll love this!”

He walked into the wall of water and it retreated. Doris and Danny stuck close behind him. As the trio advanced, the watery floor remained solid. The sky remained in view above them. And the water advanced behind them at a comfortable distance. They were on their way to the beach.

At the beach the anxious crowd saw only the empty boat floating away. Earlier Dean had paused mid-stroke when Eddie passed him by, but then continued swimming towards where the mother and child were last seen. The flat strip of still water was still there so he swam in it.

Soon a hole was seen in the water moving towards the beach with a ridge of water in front of it. It moved towards the beach and towards Dean between them.

Dean stopped swimming and considered swimming ferociously towards the beach to escape whatever was approaching. But, too late. The ridge of water had reached him.

Sam and the others saw Dean rise with the water and then disappear behind it.

Soon a voice, “Hiya, Dean!” It was Eddie’s.

The hole in the water finally reached the beach and opened up. Two walls of water stood suspended in place revealing between them an exuberant Doris and Danny marching out to dry land and Dean and Eddie chatting animatedly behind them.

The darkness dissipated as quickly as it came. Just another Oklahoma day. Sam thought about Eddie’s words, including that after Eddie left nobody would remember him being there.

Dean reached Sam excited as he could be. “Did you see that? I was swept up and landed on solid water! With walls of water on both sides! Like Moses and his people walking out of the Red Sea!” He marveled over the event. Eddie started to look more favorable in Dean’s eyes. All the amazing things he could do; Dean would love to see that.

Much hugging ensued among the Downy family. The word “miracle” passed around the crowd, a sign that the Downys’ mission was blessed by God. They looked back to the water to see it had returned to normal. Other than what they had witnessed, there was no evidence of what had happened.

Except that Castiel, standing a distance behind them, had thought to hold up his smartphone and take a picture of the foursome’s arrival out of the lake.

Preparing to leave, Eddie offered to take the cat . He had a barn. It would have the company of the barn cats already there. There were also some bee hives and a clover field, not that the cat would care, but Eddie had heard of Castiel’s fondness for bees from that morning’s recording of Castiel’s conversation with Timothy.

Eddie raised up the cat. “It’s a she. Do you have a name for her, Castiel?”

“No,” said Castiel. “I doubt she needs a name. She’s a cat. I’m just bonded to it.”

“I’ll call her Cassandra,” said Eddie and took her with him to the Downy Inn office to check out. He paid for the rooms and was in the Jeep bounding down the road before anyone else was aware.

Heading home to Indiana. Eddie pulled out the recorder and turned it on. He could understand Enochian so he reheard Timothy’s message of that morning, and then Timothy’s conversation with Castiel. First they discussed how sigils worked in warding and modifying the ones in the bunker. They had chatted about Eddie’s other numerous past lives and Castiel’s many missions with his angel battalion. The Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Greeks and Romans. Og, Gog and Magog, Atlantis, Lemuria, Timothy’s plantation on Mars, and Castiel’s overseeing the seven empires of Saturn. Wait! Mars the planet? And wasn’t Saturn a ball of gas? Eddie finally gave up on trying to understand what it was all about. The conversation had gone way over his head. He turned off the recorder and turned on his iPod.

Cassandra slept peacefully under a pile of old towels on the floor of the Jeep, purring along with the sound of the motor.

At the bunker the next day Castiel announced that he was going to modify the warding sigils on the bunker. Among the sigils could be included ones that redirect strangers to another site nearby. They would approach the bunker but end up instead at another place thinking they were actually at the bunker. Castiel told the Winchesters that Eddie would be purchasing the property.

“Who is Eddie?” asked Sam.

“Eddie Timms is the guy who drew out the demon in Arkansas and divided the waters of Lake Downs yesterday.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Dean. “Didn’t we kill that demon? There was just the three of us. And I didn’t see anybody do anything to the water at the lake. Did Eddie wave a staff over it?”

Sam nodded in agreement.

Castiel pulled out his smartphone and held it up, displaying the photo he had taken of Dean and Eddie walking out of the lake behind Doris and her son. “He’s the guy you’re talking to here, Dean.”

The brothers looked at the video and cocked their heads like they were straining to see something tiny or blurry.

Dean looked oddly at Castiel and said “There’s only the three of us, Cas, the mother, the son and me behind them. I’m not talking to anybody.”

“I can’t see anyone else, either,” confirmed Sam.

Castiel turned the smartphone towards himself. There was Eddie as big as life in the group emerging from the lake. And Dean was definitely talking to him. He would have to talk to Eddie about not performing his miracles in front of Dean and Sam.


	6. Chapter 6

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 6

In Terre Haute three waitresses were taking a short smoke break outside the kitchen door of a roadside diner that commonly served a lot of travelers who cruised down Interstate 70 in Indiana. Their conversation turned toward a couple of regulars who often stopped in on their way back home to Kansas. The two men never gave consistent stories about what they did for work--once even showing FBI badges--or even the same names, and that was part of their entertainment whenever the guys stopped in. One of the trio, Celia, had overheard them referring to each other as “Sammy” and “Dean” and was sure that was their names, but the girls in conversations among themselves referred to them as “Long-and-lean” and “Freckles.”

“Well, time to go back in.” Barb stubbed out her cigarette.

Jeannette followed suit and wished a cheerful, “Have a good day!” to three customers that passed closed by on the walkway that led behind the diner to a housing addition.

They turned to go in the kitchen door when something above cast a dark shadow over them. Looking up in unison, they were startled at the sight of a dark gooey mass descending upon them, too quickly for any other reaction. All three were immediately covered completely in the mass, which soon was drawn back up, leaving nothing but three red oily puddles outside the door.

A duplicate set of women in waitress uniforms with name tags reading “Celia,” “Barb,” and “Jeannette” circled around the bloody spots and entered the kitchen.

“I said I’d warm Freckle’s coffee,” said Celia. She grabbed the coffee pot, but paused to report to the others that she didn’t know any more in this body about the Winchesters than they had known before. The others confirmed the same before she and Jeannette headed towards Sam and Dean at a table in the back corner of the diner.

Celia poured hot coffee into Dean’s cup and pushed the sugar packet holder in his direction. “So, Sweetie, what will it be? Cherry or apple? I’ll heat it up.” Dean grinned broadly, thought better of replying “You already are,” and opted for cherry pie. With whipped cream.

Barb approached the counter where a white-haired man was squinting at the menu on the wall behind it. Of course it was Eddie. He perked up as she arrived and ordered a “stack of cheese toasties” and black coffee. She took a guess as to how many a stack of toasties would be and turned around to grill them. She guessed correctly, proved by the wide-eyed glee expressed in the man’s eyes when she returned with the cheese toasties.

She had noticed Eddie watching the Winchesters as she fixed his breakfast. So, when she warmed his coffee from a fresh pot, she leaned in and said, “You know those guys back there, Honey?”

Eddie grinned broadly and took a sip of coffee. “Neighbors!”

 

Barb was intrigued and leaned closer. “Really?’ You’re from near Lebanon, too? So...which side of the bunker is your place? Are you Joe Riley? One of the Landrums?”

Eddie’s cackles rose. How would this woman know about the bunker? The Winchesters weren’t known to be open to just anyone about their hometown or home life. He decided it was time to disappear in the usual Eddie Timms style.

He pulled out a pencil and pad and scribbled “Give to Sam” on the top sheet. Then poked the pencil through the paper and held them up with a finger at each end of the pencil.

“I gotta pee,” he said and stood up. “Could you give this to Sam over there while I’m gone? I’ll be back.” Barb watched the pencil turn from wood into silver between his fingers. He handed them to her and turned toward the restroom.

“Sure,” Barb said through the odd sense of awe she was feeling. She walked towards the Winchesters, but stopped short of their table. Give to Sam. She knew which one Celia had identified as Sam, but for the life or her she could not recall why she was standing there with a note for him with a silver pencil piercing it.

At the boys’ table, she handed the pencil and note to Sam. “Someone said to give this to you.”

Sam took the pencil and note and waved the silver pencil in front of Dean’s face. “Eddie,” he said.

Both brothers and all three waitresses turned to look back into the room. There was no Eddie. And no cheese toasties on the counter. Just a cup of coffee and a some money. And Barb could not give a reason she didn’t know where the note came from. The brothers glanced knowingly at each other and said it made no difference to them. They were sure they would hear about it later, if not from Eddie himself, then from Castiel when they got home.

Barb and Jeannette walked back to the counter. They looked around themselves on the way.

“I don’t remember any Eddie. I don’t even remember anyone giving me that paper and pencil!” Barb said.

Jeannette surveyed the few customers in the diner and spied a man with black hair just finishing up his meal. She pointed. “That guy’s name is Ed. Remember him? He drives a blue pickup.”

“No,” said Barb, “I’ll have to assume it’s him and that he knows about the Winchesters. I’m going after him when he leaves. We’ll at least have transportation to Lebanon. You two follow us.”

Eddie had grabbed his food and dashed into the kitchen and out the back door as soon as Barb turned her back to walk to the boys’ table. Outside the door he slipped and stopped to see what was slick. He studied the three red puddles for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. No idea. He headed to the Jeep to eat and wait until he was sure the waitress had forgotten him before going back in to say “Hiya” to the Winchesters.

He sat on the hood of his Jeep and ate. Now and then he pulled off a piece of toast and poked it through an opening in the side window behind him. Castiel’s cat Cassandra was in there and she devoured the offerings.

It wasn’t long until “Ed” came out of the diner and walked towards his pickup. 

It wasn’t much longer than that until Barb slipped through the door and hurried after him.

“Ed, you forgot something!” Barb said.

The man turned around to see her pointing up. He looked up and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Eddie was watching this from atop his Jeep hood. He saw the man look up and at the same time the woman morphed into a very tall gangly black figure that began to swell and grow upward and then down onto the customer, engulfing his body totally. His form disappeared inside the mass and it all drew up back into the blob it came from. The mass reshaped into the man it had just dissolved, leaving only a puddle of red as evidence.

Eddie still watched, but now from under the Jeep. Cheese toasties were scattered on the ground and he hoped fervently that the being hadn’t noticed his less-than-graceful scramble from the hood to theground and under the vehicle. The man looked about the lot and finally towards the Jeep. He walked over while Eddie sweated. He heard Cassandra start hissing from the front seat above and the man sneered and turned to walk to the diner.

He watched as the other two waitresses came out the front door to join the man.

“This isn’t the guy Eddie,” the man scowled at them. “But, we have transportation.” He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and the three climbed into the truck.

Eddie poked his head out from under the Jeep to watch the truck leave the lot and take the road leading to the interstate.

After the truck was out of sight, Eddie climbed out and stood up. He pushed another piece of bread through the window for Cassandra and then went to inspect the puddle.

He held his hand over the spot, half-expecting it to jump up at him. But, no, there was no life, just minute particles of blood and tissue. No essence of a human, so it would be useless for him to chase after the truck and restore the soul into the new body. There was no soul to restore. There was no essence of a demon either. So, Eddie couldn’t have put a soul into that thing’s body anyway; there wasn’t anything he could have been able to draw out of the body to replace.

Eddie paused to ponder over the loss of one, and possibly four, souls that day. A failure he sincerely dreaded would happen whenever Timothy would send him out on his missions. He stood and soaked in the sadness. The eternal loss.

The beings were definitely shapeshifting monsters. That’s what Timothy warned Eddie he would be dealing with when he got to the bunker. And silver was the weapon material of choice for killing shapeshifters. So he leaned down and touched a finger to the puddle, which turned to silver and then dissolved into air. He did the same to the three puddles outside the kitchen. He was sure they weren’t going to evolve into something demonic or otherwise, but let’s not take chances. He did not want to have to go back to clean up a bigger mess due to his lack of thoroughness.

Looking towards the diner, Eddie was not in the mood to talk to anyone. He’d rather stew in his dark mood right now. Besides, he would see Castiel and the Winchesters in Kansas in a few hours. He hopped into the Jeep and drove out of the lot and headed towards the bunker. He could greet Sam and Dean when they got home and warn them then what was coming. He was sure the blue truck ahead of him was going that way, too. But when would its occupants show up at the bunker and what would they look like by then?


	7. Chapter 7

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 7

“It looks like someone took all of Grandma Winchester’s quilts and they exploded all over it,” said Dean as he marveled over the various sigils painted on the large barn. Markings over each window and door. Large ones on the roof and the sides. Small ones within the large ones, some in reverse of others. Stripes of different materials ringed the structure. He recognized salt pressed into the ground all around the barn’s base. Castiel looked proudly at his masterpiece. Dean smiled at the notion an angel might actually experience human pride. This was the first such display of warding marks Dean had ever seen. He hadn’t even been born when the Men of Letters put similar symbols on the bunker and wasn’t present when Sam and Castiel embellished it with a few sigils of their own.

“Next, we will paint over the barn and cover the surrounding ground with extra soil and nobody will be aware the sigils are here.” said Castiel. “But they will do their work. A few more on the bunker and those searching for it will be redirected to here. Then we can deal with them at this barn instead of where we and the vital artifacts will be. Look inside. There are more.”

Dean hurried into the barn like a kid expecting to find Christmas presents under a tree.

One end of the barn held rooms for a residence; there was no house on the property. Nothing was painted on or etched into the walls in this part. Pictures hanging on the walls contained mostly Christian imagery, one with a young man in a silver robe addressing a huge crowd with all the children at his feet and adults further back. The furniture was simple and practical. All this made sense with an apostle of the Lord involved in its building.

The opposite end was empty except for shelves and hooks intended to hold farm equipment and supplies. On each of two walls Dean saw a foot-high door with sigils over it. What was Eddie planning on letting in besides humans? Oh, yeah, barn cats.

The vast center section had more of the sigils. A huge circle of salt was embedded in the floor, with a pentagram in its center and various other symbols surrounding the circle completely. They were uniform in size but painted in different colors. Phrases in an unknown language (Enochian?) decorated the walls. Double doors opened at one side. Inside them and at the opposite side of the room were doors built into the floor. Dean pulled one up to see a staircase made of a material he didn’t recognize that descended into the darkness of a lower room.

The place was beginning to give Dean the creeps. It didn’t make him feel secure as he had expected to feel when he walked in. In fact, he jumped when Castiel spoke.

“We need to talk before you and Sam go to the bunker,” the angel said.

They walked out to the Impala where Sam was rummaging through his and Dean’s belongings. They had just gotten back from their latest hunt out east and had stopped first at this barn on Eddie’s farm next to the Winchester property. Castiel had called and insisted so. Eddie had already been here and talked to him and was sitting at this moment in front of the bunker in case the Winchesters showed up there first.

Castiel tapped on his smartphone and announced to Eddie that Sam and Dean had arrived. Eddie was on his way. In the meantime Dean suggested they wait by the car. Sam wanted to check out the inside of the barn, but Dean said it was a bad idea. Sam was inside for a few minutes, but back out again. He agreed: it felt like being in a torture chamber except you couldn’t see the equipment.

“Hiya, neighbors!” Eddie had just pulled up in his Jeep. The barn wasn’t that far from the bunker.

“What! You moving in?” Sam asked.

“Heck, no!” said Eddie. “I might stop over on my way to my other properties. This place makes me feel weird. I stay at my place in Indiana as much as I can.”

“The sigils are correct. They aren’t the problem and they will do what they are supposed to.” assured Castiel. “There’s something else, something new, affecting this location.”

“Oh, speaking of,” said Eddie. “Don’t open the doors in the floor guys!”

Dean looked down to the ground. Should he say something? Nah!

“So, why were we called here before going home?” Dean was ready to change the subject to one that would get him closer to the shower and a warm meal.

But Sam pulled out the silver pencil and waved it in front of Dean. The discussion was going to go on. “Eddie, were you at a diner in Indiana before us?” He handed the pencil to Eddie.

Eddie handed it back. “Not quite. You two were already there when I arrived. Those three waitresses? One of them started asking me questions about you that she shouldn’t have, so I made the silver pencil in front of her to make her forget and to get a message to you that I had been there and to be wary. The tall one dissolved some guy in a flood of black goo and then turned into him. I’m certain something similar was done to all three of the waitresses behind the diner. You have shapeshifting creatures following you. They want into your bunker for some reason. Being pierced by silver will kill them, so keep that pencil with you. Timothy said they don’t have hearts per se, just shove it in and break through the skin and whatever it is they spew that kills their victims will kill them, too.

“This will be new for me. I’m used to dealing with changing destined events and purging a few demons. These are monsters. But I was sent to keep you two alive today. Timothy says you will let a stranger into the bunker tomorrow and one of you will die. That’s predicted. So, save us all some grief guys; stay in the bunker tomorrow and don’t let anyone in. If a shapeshifter fools you and gets in, one of you will die and it won’t leave you a soul to carry on in.”

“What happens if someone gets in?” Dean asked.

“Then I will have to act to stop the chain of events somehow. Timothy told be to bring a silver weapon and Sam has that, Castiel’s cat and she’s in the car, and this.” Eddie pulled a garden hose from the back of his Jeep and held it up. “I don’t know what this means. I’m not the part of me that sees the future. That’s Timothy. I’m just the part with the gift to change it. I can’t stay in contact with that part of me and act at the same time. So I accept what Timothy tells me beforehand and I take a chance I can change the situation.”

“Be in the bunker all day tomorrow and don’t let anyone in until the day is over,” Eddie stressed.

“It’s evening. You and Sam go home now so you will be there by midnight,” said Castiel. “I will come over later and make sure nobody even gets close to the bunker tomorrow. Don’t let anyone in tomorrow, even if you think you know who it is. And, like Eddie said, stay put!”

“Right!” Dean turned to the Impala and waved for his brother. “Come on Sammy, let’s get home. It’s eight o’clock and I have dibs on the pork chop in the fridge!”

Eddie checked his own watch and said, “Yeah. Eight o’ clock. I need to clean up and get some sleep. I’ll be up by midnight and go with you, Castiel. Call me if something comes up.”

Castiel stepped into the barn and looked over the sigils. He stopped to make sure his smartphone was with him and waved it in the air above him. “Okay.”

Castiel sat alone in the barn with Cassandra for a time. Then he searched around for something that would entertain her and she tagged along as he looked. Blades of grass worked for awhile. Eddie should have brought along toys with the cat. It was midnight when Cas thought that, hey! maybe there would be cat toys in the Jeep. He stepped out of the barn to see, and Cassandra followed him.

It looked so dark outside in the country. But it wasn’t just that. He saw no stars. No, but he felt something. Something that rushed over him and slithered down his skin. One of the shapeshifting monsters was trying to ingest him. It covered Cas completely, but when it pulled back up he was still there. So, it couldn’t harm an angel. But he could harm it with his angel’s sword.

Cas reached for the sword in his trench coat. He didn’t feel it there. He instead felt its shaft piercing his skin. One of the others had gotten to it and stabbed him. The first monster flushed down over him again. This time when it pulled back there was no angel there. Only a smudge where he had stood.

The new Cas smiled and turned to the others. “I know something this angel did not realize. Let’s go to the Winchester’s bunker now. The enchantment on the place won’t let us in, not even with me in this body. They favor the angel, not this body and his memories. But I know where it is and how to get in now!” They climbed into Castiel’s truck and left for the bunker.

In the residential part of the barn, Eddie woke out of his trance in a sweat. Timothy had roused him and did so roughly. Something new and dire must have happened! Eddie reached for the recorder and turned it on. He heard the usual composed voice, but the message was otherwise: “Eddie. It is happening. This is tomorrow. Get to the bunker...now. This isn’t Indiana.”

Eddie pressed his hands against his head, trying to gather his thoughts. “This isn’t Indiana.” What did that mean? “This is tomorrow?” He looked at his watch. It was only 11:30; there was still half an hour left until tomorrow.

Then it clicked. His watch was still set on the time back home in Indiana. Indiana runs on Eastern Time, an hour ahead of Kansas on Central Time. Sam and Dean was in Indiana when he last saw them, and Dean’s watch was still on the same time as his when he drove away from the barn. It’s happening and Dean won’t know it is already tomorrow!

“Crap! Crap! Crap!” Eddie grabbed a shirt but left his shoes. Was Castiel still here? He ran into the barn and found Cassandra meowing with her paws on Castiel’s sword. The red smudge on the ground beside her had to have once been Castiel.

“Double crap, crap, crap! The shifters are on their way to the bunker.” Castiel was gone and Eddie didn’t have the numbers to the Winchesters’ phones. He scooped up the cat and the sword and leaped into the Jeep. Soon they were flying down the lane towards the bunker.


	8. Chapter 8

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 8

At the bunker, the shape-shifted Castiel stepped out of Castiel’s truck and considered the building in front of him. “Stay out of sight,” he told the other two. “I’ll come for you when the Winchesters are asleep.”

They climbed out of the passenger side of the truck and walked into the woods nearby. As they went they reshaped into very tall and dark and lanky beings with large broad-topped heads that extended forward like hat brims, and eyes that looked down from them rather than outward. They blended well among the tall trees in the darkness.

Castiel tried his key to the bunker door first. The sigils didn’t recognize him as the angel, so the key would not turn. He pulled out the smartphone and tapped the number for Dean’s phone.

“Dean! I don’t have my key. You need to let me in.”

“How do I know it’s you? You’ll have to wait twenty-four hours.”

“Very funny, Dean. Come on.”

A few minutes later, the door opened and Dean’s head poked around it. He flashed the watch on his arm and said, “It’s a quarter til midnight or I wouldn’t have opened this door. What’s up, Cas?”

“I decided to stay inside instead. There is not really a point to staying out here. The warding sigils are functioning. They can’t get in unless one of us lets them. I’m less likely to be used to help them get past the sigils if I’m on the inside.”

“Makes sense.” Dean turned around and headed into the bunker. The bourbon bottle in his hand suggested he had already decided how best to use his time holed up in the bunker for a full day. He settled down in the great room in front of the television.

Castiel closed the door. Good! As expected, Dean hadn’t reset his watch for local time and he opened the door.

“Where’s Sam?” he asked.

“Sammy’s reading. Either in the library or in his room.”

Castiel passed through the library. Not there. Then to Sam’s room.

There he saw Sam asleep in his bed, with two fingers still marking his place in the book he had taken in there with him to read.

Castiel went to his own room, pulled out a book from the book rack there and sat to read while he waited for Dean to pass out or get sleepy enough to retire. He wasn’t through the first chapter when he saw Dean pass by his door.

“Night, Cas,” Dean said as he walked drowsily to his own room. “Don’t bother to get me up. I’m going to sleep this off most ‘the day.”

Soon Castiel heard quiet snoring from Dean’s room. He laid the book on his bed and checked on Sam before padding quietly to the front door.

When the front door to the bunker opened, the other two came out of the woods. They had to duck low to slip their tall, wiry frames under the door lintel.

“Be quiet. I’ll keep an eye on the Winchesters,” Castiel said. “Find what we came for and then we’ll kill them and settle in.” He headed back to his room.

The creatures started in the great room, looking around and behind the furniture along the walls. They looked under the chairs and tables and felt with their dark slender fingers across the carpet searching for something under them. One moved the portraits on the wall one by one and considered prying a cabinet from the wall but reconsidered for the time being.

They moved into the kitchen and did the same. They weren’t interested in any of the artifacts. There was a passage somewhere here. They knew that much. It was just a matter of finding it.

Outside the bunker, the red Jeep came to a halt in front of the door. Eddie slipped out chanting to himself under his breath, “silver, cat, garden hose.” He hoped Sam had kept the silver pencil close by. He had Cassandra under one arm and Castiel’s sword. From the rear of the Jeep he pulled out the hose, still having no clue why Timothy would deem such things necessary.

He had his own key that Castiel had loaned him and put it in the lock. It turned; the warding sigils let him enter.

Cassandra was already inside at the bottom of the steps. Huh? Eddie looked around as he descended the steps until he spied the pet door emblazoned with sigils. He smiled at the idea that Castiel was so positive he was going to get the cat a home in the bunker that he had already installed its own guarded entrance.

Eddie paused a bit to decide what he should do. He saw the janitor’s sink to one side and walked over to attach the garden hose to it. Unless he was supposed to strangle somebody with it, the hose was going to spill water. He stood by and listened. Cassandra hurried towards the private sleeping rooms like she knew the fake Castiel would be back there.

Back in the great room, one of the creatures pulled on the cabinet again, trying to pry it quietly away from the wall. It gave suddenly and came crashing to the floor. Both froze in place, looking towards the sleeping rooms.

Sam bolted upright, flinging the book aside and checking to see that the silver pencil was still tucked in his pants pocket. Out the door and down the hall, he dashed towards the noise in the great room.

Dean was also roused. But Castiel appeared at his door.

“It’s okay, Dean,” he said assuringly. “It’s nothing. Something fell over. I’ll take care of it.”

Then a hissing black cat jumped on Castiel with all the fury a street cat could muster. Castiel retreated and Dean peered around the corner into the hall in amazement. The ball of fur was not going to let the angel advance and soon had him hiding behind the closed door of his sleeping room.

Dean assured himself that this was proof that he was right to be afraid of cats. Even Cas, who talked to cats, wasn’t immune to being terrorized by one.

Sam’s yell startled him from his revery. “Dean!” Sam called, “They’re in the bunker...in here.”

One of the creatures began to ooze a black tar-like substance that filled out its full height and began to descend above Sam’s head. Sam moved swiftly, shoving the silver pencil deep into the creature’s body.

It worked. The black mass shriveled and fell to the floor dead.

The other creature shrieked and Sam went to retrieve the pencil from the dead one’s remains. But, too late. The second creature, instead of copying its companion’s actions, morphed into a large grizzly bear that tore into Sam, ripping out masses of flesh from his body. Blood splattered from the huge gap where his belly had been.

Bang!

Sam saw through his dimming eyesight, Dean in the doorway with the Colt. The bear was slumped on the floor.

“Sammy! Oh, Sam!” Dean was immediately at his brother’s side. It didn’t look good.

Sam tried to speak but blood gurgled out of his mouth instead. His head laid back into Dean’s arms. His body struggled less and less against the pain and massive loss of blood.

“Hold on Sammy!......” Dean saw no hope here. Sam was dying.

Eddie came through the doorway, pulling the hose that was stiffening with the water flushing through it and advancing towards the brothers.

A silver weapon, the cat and a garden hose. Eddie now knew what the hose was for.

He slid through the gore around Sam’s body and stopped at his side. He pulled the hose up and began to twist off the nozzle.

For a second he paused and looked directly into Dean’s horrified eyes. “The miracle is coming, Dean. Trust me on this.”


	9. Chapter 9

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 9

Eddie twisted off the nozzle to the hose and let the water gush out onto the floor. He then stuck two fingers deep into Sam’s mouth. “First to take him out.”

“Take him out? What do you mean, take him out?” Dean was taken aback.

“Pull his soul from his body. I’m putting it into mine. Sam, where are you?” Eddie pushed his fingers in further and the blood quit gushing out of Sam’s mouth. “Now I’m turning the blood coming out his mouth and nose into oxygen so the body can breathe. Next, add blood.” He lowered the garden hose and flipped it around his arm to let the water run over his arm and wrist. As it touched his skin, the water turned to blood and flowed into Sam’s body. “And now patch his lungs with dummy tissue.”

“Dummy tissue...what the heck!”

“Yeah. Here,” Eddie pulled a bit of tissue from Sam’s gory stomach and slapped it into Dean’s hand. “I can make fake skin and fake blood. That’s skin. It actually just a framework that Sam’s body will use to heal itself. The excess will just break up later and the body will dispose of it in the usual way. The blood...”

“This is sick!” Dean scooted back and flicked the bit of tissue aside. “Cas is here. Cas can heal him!”

Dean stood up and headed towards the private rooms shouting, “Cas! Cas, get out here. Sammy’s dying!”

“Dean,” Eddie shouted. He pull Castiel’s sword from out of the pooling blood and tossed it in Dean’s direction. More quietly, “The Castiel in there is the third monster. I don’t think Cas is with us anymore, Dean. That sword was outside the barn with the usual red spot the shape-shifting monsters leave in their victims’ place.”

Dean returned, his body hunched in defeat, and settled down to his knees beside Sam’s body.

“The blood,” Eddie continued, “is a universal variation that all human bodies can use. But I can make specific blood types. This is matched to what Sam has. I have made this for years. In fact I have a contact who drives up to my place in Indiana every once in a while when the hospitals are short on certain blood types. She opens up the truck, I climb in and change the liquid in the various bottles into the blood types marked them, we have lunch and then she leaves for Indy with fresh blood, no questions asked.” He pulled his hand from Sam’s mouth.

Blood started gushing again. “Okay, it wasn’t the lungs. Now to patch the stomach. You seriously know what you are doing here? Do you have any medical training, any at all? Oh, hiya Sam! You mean training like the board game Operation? No! I don’t mean like the board game Opera...Egads, Eddie do you know even where the stomach is at? Don’t irritate me Sam, or you might end up with two appendixes. My appendix was removed, Eddie. There isn’t one. So....what is this? I don’t know. Leave it alone. Still patching...I think I have the whole stomach and part of the duodenum coated. You didn’t know I knew duodenum, did you! Smart ass! I don’t care”

To Dean Eddie remarked, “In case you haven’t already figured it out, Sam is safely inside me and making remarks about my surgical skills..”

Dean seemed a bit more composed. “Oh well, Chuck can make a new Cas again if we’ve lost him,” he joked darkly, thinking of Castiel’s previous death and restoration.

“Chuck?” Eddie asked.

“God”

“God’s name is Chuck?”

“Yeah! Chuck. ‘Bother you?”

“Huh? Not at all. It’s more personable than Jehovah. Chuck is good. You should introduce us.”

Eddie pulled his fingers out of Sam’s mouth. No blood. “Success!”

“You should build the skin up on the far side. Then you won’t have to make so much blood. It’s getting deep. Yeah, Sam, you’re right. Here goes.” Eddie reached to Sam’s far side and pulled generic skin from the blood flowing over his arm and started forming a tissue surface to wall the organs in. “Next the liver. A nasty gash here. I’ll fill it in.”

“Hey!” Dean jumped up and chased away Cassandra who had just run up to Sam’s body and put her paws on his shoulder. “How did the cat get in here?” He tried to chase her out of the room, but she darted left, then right, then between Dean’s legs and back to Sam.

Cassandra pawed Sam’s shoulder as if massaging it. Dean came back to pick her up but Eddie called out, “Wait! Something’s happening. I think Sam’s healing on his own. I’m not doing that.”

Eddie sat back and pointed to where skin was growing across Sam’s stomach. The organs inside appeared to shift around and take on a healthier color.

“Eddie, I think Cas is in the cat again,” said Sam from within him, “Cas is doing it through Cassandra’s body.”

Eddie nodded and pulled back the hose, aiming the water away from the body. He glanced towards the private rooms and saw the faux Castiel inching along the wall just outside the large pool of blood towards the steps to the door. “Castiel!”

faux Castiel froze. But Eddie held up the hose with water gushing out. “Do me a favor, Cas, and shut the water off over there.” He pointed to the sink with the hose.

Now looking a bit more composed, faux Castiel said, “Okay,” and walked to the sink. He put his hand on the faucet handle and turned it. 

Eddie was ready. From his hand to faux Castiel’s the hose turned silver, the skin on faux Castiel’s hand turned silver, then his arm. When a spike of silver pierced his chest faux Castiel jerked back, wobbled a bit and dropped dead to the floor. Eddie changed the hose etal all into flesh so real Castiel could heal it back into a healthy heart and skin.

“Dean.” Eddie pointed to Cassandra and Dean picked up the cat and carried her to Castiel’s body. He put her on the body and for a while she sat there seeming to will something to happen in front of her. Or was she just staring at some imaginary bug?

It wasn’t very long until Castiel’s hand lifted up to cradle the cat and his eyes opened. Castiel was back in his own body--at least a usable replica of it.

Eddie waived Castiel to come over to Sam’s body. Cas had unfinished work there. He roused himself and walked a bit weakly over to Eddie and the Winchesters. Cassandra sloshed through the blood to a stool where she could sit high above the blood and oversee things.

After some time with Castiel’s hand on Sam’s healing body, Eddie asked if it was good enough to put Sam back in. Castiel said it was, so Eddie touched Sam’s arm.

Sam’s eye’s blinked open and he looked up and grinned at his relieved brother.

“Welcome back, Sammy,” Dean beamed.

“I’m beat!” Said Eddie. He stretched and stood up. “Time to clean up.”

He walked over to the two dead creatures. “Would you like a bear’s head for the wall?”

The Winchesters looked at each other, then around the room.

“I don’t think I want any part of something that ripped by brother to shreds,” Dean said. “Absolutely not!”

Sam shook his head in agreement. Castiel looked at the others blankly, not having seen what had happened earlier.

“Okay then.” Eddie touched the grizzly and it turned to blood and the now-liquid form dropped into the pool under it. He did the same with it’s partly shape-shifted companion. Sloshing back past the guys, he pulled up the hose and it dissolved at his touch into a shower of red blood droplets into the pool.

Then he trudged towards the door. He lifted one foot and looked back, showing to the others that he had raced to the bunker barefooted. Then he pulled up both pant legs. The blood around him began to climb up his legs and the edge of the pool pulled back from the walls and furniture. It even pulled out of the others’ blood-soaked clothes and moved in Eddie’s direction.

So far, so good. Eddie climbed up the steps to the door and the red liquid humped up and raised up the steps with him. Eddie pushed the door open and walked out. The blood followed.

Dean hurried to the door to see, following the back edge of the moving pool. Outside he watched Eddie turn around to be sure all of it was outside, then the blood all turned into water and sank, mostly, into the ground and gravel. Eddie smiled and gave the thumbs up motion.

Sam was going to need some time to recover. Dean would be hovering over him to make sure he got anything he wanted until then. He also watched Castiel closely, not confident he was totally recovered as the angel insisted he was.

Eddie was ready to go home to Indiana. But, after checking out the barn he stopped back at the bunker. The brothers knew the shapeshifters were caught rummage through the great room, that Sam had killed one before being mauled by the other, which Dean shot with the Colt. After that they only recalled Castiel’s hand being on Sam until his healing was complete. And Castiel told them about how he escaped into Cassandra’s body when one of them took over his “vessel.” But he wasn’t present for what happened in the great room. So, Eddie summarized the rest while Sam rolled the silver pencil over and over in his hand as if it would hold the memory for him.

“So, is Cassandra staying here?” Eddie asked Dean as he turned towards his Jeep. Dean’s expression showed he wasn’t ready, so Eddie picked up Cassandra. “Come on Cass, let’s go.”

“Heh, Cas the angel and Cass the cat,” Dean said under his breath.


	10. Chapter 10

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 10

Dean came into the kitchen to see Sam with his head in the fridge and Castiel behind him craning his neck to see in, too.

“Should they be raw or hard boiled?” Sam asked, not backing out.

Castiel pulled out his smart phone and poked at it intensely while walking into the next room. Dean soon heard him calling out from the next room, “Raw. Eddie says they need to be raw.”

What’s going on,” Dean reached around Sam for the milk. Cereal would be good enough this morning. On to the cupboard, “Hey! Captain Crunch!”

“Eddie says were going to fight gnomes and we need to bring eggs.” Sam said, pulling out a carton and looking in it, “Five. That’s not many.”

Castiel peered into the carton, too. “He said to just grab what we had and go to the barn. I think we are just contributing whatever we have and he will have plenty regardless of what we bring.”

Dean grabbed a bowl from the sink, sniffed at it, then poured cereal in. “What do eggs have to do with gnomes? Are we feeding them before the fight? If there are pancakes, too, I’m putting the cereal back.”

“Nope.” Sam and Castiel headed out of the kitchen. “Coming with?”

“Now?” Dean shoveled dry Captain Crunch into his mouth and stashed the milk back into the fridge. “I’m driving. We’ll take Baby.”

Castiel looked sternly at Dean. “You want to risk egg yolk on your car?”

“Um. I’ll park far away. Where are these gnomes right now?” Dean hopped into Baby, the others took their places, and they were off to Eddie Timms’ barn.

At Eddie’s place Baby stopped at the sign in the middle of the lane which read, “Stop here and walk. --Eddie.” And so they did.

As they approached the barn, the trio noticed the several black cauldrons ringing the barn at a distance. Red smoke rose from each cauldron. Otherwise they only saw Eddie coming in their direction. “Hiya, guys!”

Once they crossed between the cauldrons the scene changed dramatically. Behind Eddie a score of teenaged girls in red military uniforms armed with what looked like slingshots and long knitting needles were battling rock beings as the creatures emerged from the ground. In their midst a man made of metal decapitated the rock creatures with a sharp green-edged axe. A regal-looking woman in a white gown with bright red trim observed from the barn’s doorway.

“Those knives and guns won’t do any good,” said Eddie. “Let’s go to the barn and get you armed.” He grabbed eggs from nearby and flung them at the creatures as they ran.

Castiel looked down at the few eggs in the carton he had brought. Then he followed suit and emptied the whole carton on the nearest rock creature. He paused to watch solemnly as it collapsed to the ground in agony. One of the girls ran up to it and shoved her needle into one of the crevasses in its body. The needle began humming and vibrating and the creature’s body snapped into to two parts. She slipped the needle back into its sheath and ran to join the melee.

Castiel caught up with the others at the barn door. As he passed the woman he noticed her long red hair braided down to the small of her back through a delicate ruby-laden gold framework. She smiled pleasantly at him and stepped into the barn behind the four men.

They stepped to the right and were startled to see a man with a flour bag for a head and an awkwardly drawn face on it, one eye larger than the other. With baggy clothing and bits of straw sticking out from the cuffs and neck it waas a living scarecrow. He stood beside a podium with a huge book opened on it.

“I am Glinda,” the woman said, “ruler of the south lands of Oz. This is Scarecrow.” I know you have met Dorothy Baum, but just in case you do not know the basics of living in a fairyland like Oz, here are a few if them: we all live forever, we do not age, magic can bring inanimate objects like friend Scarecrow to life and we consider them persons like us. Also, if individuals are divided in half they become inanimate until the two parts are put together, at which time they become their former selves.

“The soldiers outside are my personal guards. They look like young girls, but they are much much older. I’ve found that younger-looking people stay very aggressive which we need in war. Older-looking people are too passive for that but are consistent in their work so there is a place for everyone. The rock beings out there are gnomes and are at war with Oz. Eggs are poison to gnomes, so the girls slingshot eggs at them--raw eggs work quickest. Once stunned, the girls’ wands are set to shatter the gnomes in half. They become inanimate and we can bargain with King Ruggedo for a truce for their restoration.” 

By now Sam had gotten used to the frozen smile on Scarecrow’s face and stood beside him looking over the huge book. “What’s the writing appearing on this page?” Sam asked.

“History being written,” replied Scarecrow. “It’s happening simultaneously on several pages. On this page is what is going on outside. We are winning. King Ruggedo has become alarmed. It is almost time to summon Queen Ozma to negotiate.”

Dean was at the doorway watching the battle. Glinda noticed his forlorn expression and called for Nick to come to the barn.

Nick Chopper came into the barn feeling jovial, “We are doing well. Most of them have been soundly defeated.” 

“Friend Nick, that is wonderful!” Glinda said. She produced a duplicate axe and, as she ran her finger over the blade, the edge turned green,” she continued. “Nicholas Chopper, this is Dean Winchester who is skilled with weapons of all kinds. “I would like you to take him back with you and have him help finish the battle.”

“Gladly!” said Nick. He motioned for Dean to follow him out into battle and Dean cheerfully trotted along behind him, enchanted axe held above his head. Castiel was already out there laden with bags of eggs and rearming the girls with their slingshots. He took a few attempts at the slingshot himself with some success. The girls cheered each time his egg struck a gnome.

In the distance, Eddie was working alone. He had figured out how to form an effective likeness to whipped egg and as he made contact with a gnome he turned enough of its surface into egg to cause an injury. When he reached its main body, a touch of his hand caused a slice of its body to turn into air, neatly dividing it into two inanimate parts.

“Eddie shouldn’t be fighting alone, Dean,” noted Nick. “Let’s work our way in his direction.”

Later, Sam noticed Castiel on the other side of the room He was entranced, looking into the book on the podium there. A fat bug-like being with very thin legs and arms and sporting a curled mustache and equally curled eyebrows, and wearing boldly colored stylish clothes, pointed out items in the book to him.

Sam crossed the room to see what they were looking at.

The creature was explaining to Castiel how many of the sigils angels used were similar to Ozian magic and that, with Oz’s location in its universe being aligned with Kansas in this one, Ozian magic was reacting to the angel warding and witch spells on the barn.

“After the battle we can go over the markings,” it said. “I am sure that working together we can create a portal from locations on Earth by tunneling into the fairy lands, and we can likewise create portals from Oz to Ev and other fairy lands by passing our underground tunnels through this location on Earth.

“Oh, hello! You must be the much admired Sam Winchester! I am Professor Wogglebug. And, no, I was never an actual insect. I often joke that a teacher once found me sitting on a class windowsill, put me on under magnifying glass and displayed my magnified likeness on the wall, after which I stepped off the wall. Therefore I am T.E. Wogglebog H.M., being ‘throughly educated’ and ‘highly magnified.’ That is NOT what actually happened, but the story stuck and I push it as far as I can because the students love it.”

One of the girls stepped up to load Castiel with more eggs and he marched out into the battle.

“Sam,” Professor Wogglebug continued, “this is Glinda’s Great Book of Spells. It has the greatest known collection of spells in both our worlds and instructions on how to use them. The spells of all the witches in Oz and fairies in other lands are just a fraction of what is recorded here. So far I have found all of the markings on and inside the barn in this book.”

Glinda’s voice drowned out the hubbub in the barn and shouting outside. “Queen Ozma is on her way! Prepare for the arrival of Queen Ozma!”

A uniformed girl pulled open the door on the floor as fighters in the field gathered empty cauldrons and other materials and took them to the end of the barn.


	11. Chapter 11

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 11

There was a hush at the barn, then the sound of horse’s hoofs racing until a horse and rider flew up from the stairs below and out of the barn. It was a mighty horse made of wood, its fibers flexing with every step and a gold-laced mane flowing in the air matching the gold in its hoofs.

On the steed, holding on to a pole between its shoulders with one hand as if on a carousel horse and holding an emerald laden scepter in the other hand, rode a petit girl in a billowing white dress and flowing blonde hair. She wore a tiara of gold and emeralds with the Oz emblem on it and gold and green braids throughout her hair and dress. Ozma. They raced on to the end of the barn where all was set. Everyone in the barn poured out into the field and joined the soldiers among the bodies of the vanquished gnomes.

“Thank you Tippetarious,” said Ozma as she kissed the horse and slipped down to the ground. She stepped onto a green carpet and composed herself. The carpet advanced. It unrolled in front of the queen as she walked and after a few yards began forming a stairway into the air. The queen walked up them until the carpet ended twenty steps above the crowd.

Ozma held out her hands and waved her scepter. The ground rumbled and a massive collection of boulders broke through its surface and rose up to where she stood. From the boulders appeared a massive face of stone. “Queen Ozma of Oz,” it said in a deep voice.

“King Ruggedo of Nome Mountain, my dear friend,” replied Ozma who curtsied politely.

Ruggedo looked about the grounds. “This...is not Oz.”

“No,” said Ozma. “Your army follow a portal that crosses out of fairy territory and back before reaching Oz. I hoped to meet with you before your army entered our country so that we might avoid great injury and loss of life. I understand that someone has told you incorrectly that we have been mining the gems and metals that gnomes rightfully claim to be theirs. I want to show you that this is untrue.”

Ozma waved down towards the soldiers below who were furiously adding powders and elixirs into the empty cauldrons. Smoke billowed and there were flashes of light until the cauldrons were tipped. Out of some poured diamonds, emeralds and rubies. Out of others the soldiers pulled out strands of gold and silver.

“You can see, dear Ruggedo, we do not mine our gems and metals, we grow them ourselves above ground.”

Ruggedo looked down towards the activity below and slowly nodded his head. “I see that.”

“It is so tough being a ruler, isn’t it?” Ozma continued, “I know how hard it is knowing who to trust and who is willing to deceive me for their own reasons. I hope that we can at least trust each other...”

“Oh, yes! I do trust you Ozma.”

“Oh, wonderful! There are some needs we have that I think both of our lands can benefit from in a trade agreement. Shall I arrange for a meeting to discuss it?”

“Oh, yes! That would be good.”

“And your brave men” Ozma looked over at the broken bodies around them. “They are injured but we were careful to split them in two rather than let anyone be killed. So they can be put back together and revived. Would you like to collect them up and do that? Or shall we put them together and send them home?”

“She’s so sweet right now I could barf!” Dean whispered to Sam. A couple of the girls giggled quietly.

“I shall take care of it Ozma. I’ll see you in negotiations, then.” Boulder hands reached up out of the ground and pulled the gnome bodies down with them as Ruggedo’s large form sank back into the Earth.

The carpet with Ozma on the top step lowered and folded together until she was on the ground. She turned and marched to the barn with Tippetarious beside her. The soldiers cheered.

When she reached Glinda, Ozma kissed her cheek and said, “I do know who not to trust. I’m going back to the Emerald City immediately to prepare the army there in case dear Ruggedo has second thoughts about being so generous. What does the Book of Records say?”

“Ruggedo has accepted the terms and the army is returning to Nome Mountain,” reported Scarecrow.

“We shall see if we can keep it that way,” Ozma pulled herself onto Tippetarious, who reared up slightly for show and then charged into the barn and down the steps they on which they arrived.

“Okay, girls, into the barn. We are heading back to my castle.” Glinda motioned her soldiers into the barn. The girls closed up the caudrons at either side of the great books and prepared for the transfer.

Dean caught Nick Chopper’s attention and asked, “So, I thought Dorothy Baum had your head because you died.”

“Nope!” Nick tapped the side of his head with his finger. “Still attached!”

“Speaking of ‘not to trust,’ that Frank Baum daughter was some problem child.” Scarecrow had his view on the matter. “She and a friend of Baum’s managed to revive Old Mombi, who brought dozens of inanimate objects to life for an army, and the three attempted to carve themselves their own country out of Oz’s land. Ozma finally had her fill of the family and banished Mr. Baum from the country and sent him away with his daughter and Old Mombi in a bottle. I hear Old Mombi was stabbed to death on Earth-side with the pointy end of a cheap pair of red stilettoes. So fitting for that monster.”

“It wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the West?”

“Oh, no,” said one of the girls. “Dorothy Gale killed her years before the Baums appeared in Oz.”

“Are we ready?” Glinda motioned for Dean, Sam, Castiel and Eddie to exit the barn with her. Nick closed the door on the floor.

“Wait!” Sam said before leaving. “Professor Wogglebug. What happened to Dorothy Baum?”

The professor twisted his mustache and grinned broadly, “She came face-to-face with Dorothy Gale!”

Glinda wrapped a colorful wide belt around her waist and turned to face the others. A swipe of the hand to the left “Take all to the palace,” and those on the left disappeared. A swipe to the right, “Take all to the palace,” and those on the right did the same. That left only the five outside.

“Nothing left but to arrange for the grounds to be tilled,” remarked Eddie. Sam and Dean turned to go to the car.

“Wait!” Eddie pulled a pencil out of his pocket, turned it’s structure into ruby and poked it into Sam’s pocket. “You’ll forget everything that happened when you cross between the cauldrons--their magic, not my doing. This will remind you to ask Castiel about what happened here.”

Sam and Dean Winchester crossed the barrier to the car and looked back to see Eddie and Castiel standing at the doorway to the barn and the ripped up landscape around the barn.

“Whoa, what just happened?” Dean asked Sam.

“Looks like there was a war,” Sam replied. He pulled the ruby pencil from his pocket and showed Dean. “I guess we’ll have to talk to Cas when he comes home.”

Eddie and Castiel watched as Sam and Dean climbed into Baby and they drove off. Eddie felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Glinda’s.

“You both have friends in Oz if ever either of you need us.” She placed her hands on her belt, “Take me home,” and faded from view.

“Did you learn all you needed from Professor Wogglebug?,” Eddie asked Castiel.

“Yes, I did. We can finish the modifications tonight and try them out.”

Castiel picked up a can of paint and a brush as Eddie grabbed a flashlight and pulled open the door in the floor and they walked in.

“Cross your fingers, Castiel. If we do this right, we won’t be coming back out through this door...No, you don’t really have to cross your fingers. It’s just an expression.”

Meanwhile, in the bunker, this time it was Dean’s head in the fridge. “Damn! We’re out of eggs!”


	12. Chapter 12

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 12

“Dean!” Sam walked into the kitchen where Dean was checking on the stew in the crock pot.

“Remember anything about this one?” Sam waved a glassy red pencil--more exactly a ruby one--in Dean’s face.

Dean leaned away from it. “No! Where’d you get it?

“It was in the cup with the other two. I don’t have a clue.”

“Ask Cas.”

“Do you know where he is? I haven’t seen him for a couple days.”

“Probably at the barn. He’s there a lot.” Dean put the lid back on the crock pot. “We can take Baby there and check while this cooks.”

The Impala pulled up to Eddie Timms’ barn and the Winchesters climbed out to look around. All of the sigils had been painted over and the barn was now a bold green color with white trim. Dean pulled open the side door and looked inside.

No sign of Castiel, or his cat that they were used to seeing there with him once in a while. Sam walked to the far wall and looked around from there. Except for a large black-lined circle in the middle of the floor, any markings inside had also been painted over but with a soft tan color.

Dean kicked at the door on the floor in front of him and told Sam, “You know, I’m not totally sure what is under here. “I thought they were tornado shelters, but it doesn’t make sense to have two tornado shelters in the same room.”

“So let’s see.” Sammy pulled up the door on his side of the barn and looked in. All he saw was a stairway and blackness.

Dean pulled open his door and looked in, expecting to see light at Sam’s end of the room below. But, no, still blackness.

“So, let’s go in.” Sammy started down the steps and Dean did the same from his side.

A few minutes later Sam came up the steps on Dean’s side. He looked around for Dean who was nowhere to be seen. So he looked back down the steps and called, “Dean, where are you?”

“Down here!” Shortly Dean’s head appeared as he ascended the steps to where Sam was standing.

Sam scratched his head. “How’d I miss you? It’s just one long tunnel. I didn’t feel any side rooms. Did you?”

“No,” said Dean. “I guess we go back in together to figure this out.”

Dean walked back down the stairs with Sam right behind him. They felt along the walls at either side of them in the black hallway until Dean stubbed the toe of his boot on a step at the other end. He tapped his toe against the step a couple more times before Sam bumped into him from behind.

“Didn’t you leave the other door open?” Dean asked his brother.

“Yeah,” said Sam.

This was weird. Dean pushed up on the door above and it gave way. He pushed the door back and looked around. The room looked different. It looked larger and it had a lot more stuff in it now. He looked over his shoulder. It also had Eddie’s jacked-up red Jeep in it. And Eddie was leaning against it.

“Hiya, Dean! Sam!” Eddie said with his usual flair of under appreciating the bizarreness of every situation in which he was involved.

The Winchesters climbed out of the passageway totally bewildered. They walked around a bit until Cassandra came in from the barn cat section of the barn, meowing and purring in greeting.

“Shall I tell you or would you guys rather mull it over for a spell?” asked Eddie.

They both shrugged their shoulders. They were lost. So Eddie motioned them to follow him as he explained. He walked outside and towards the rear of the barn. Cassandra trotted ahead of him and the boys followed behind.

“Not a miracle this time. Magic,” said Eddie. “One door in the barn in Kansas links directly to here. The other is the exit from here linking that one. All the markings you didn’t see in the dark hallway down there overrides normal reality and uses a portal into a different realm, a magic one, and back again. You guys remember Oz. The tunnel passes through there and back again to jump to locations. And their tunnels pass into Earth’s soil and back into their magic land to do the same there.”

“Which reminds me,” said Sam. He pulled out the ruby pencil and held it out. “If it were an emerald, I would think it would tie to the Emerald City in Oz. But this is a ruby.”

“Glinda’s palace in Oz is decorated with rubies,” said Eddie. “Glinda is more experienced with magic than anyone in Oz and helped me set up the links from here to my Kansas barn and my other properties around the country. Anyway, an army of gnomes were on their way to Oz, but we headed them off in a battle at the barn and drove them back with raw eggs. I gave you the ruby pencil assuming that if you forgot you would ask Castiel about it.”

They turned the corner to the barn’s back side where a row of beehives stood.

“Castiel isn’t here,” said Eddie. “That mean’s he must be...over...there!”

Eddie pointed towards the clover field nearby where Castiel was standing giving rapt attention to something in the clover at his feet. “He’s become quite the honey farm manager.”

“Cas hasn’t told us a thing about this,” Sam said. He looked to Dean who nodded in affirmation. “Why wouldn’t he tell us?”

“You think he’s embarrassed that he isn’t so good at demon hunting and thinks we’d think less of him doing this?” Dean asked.

“Who? Castiel?” Eddie said. “Castiel hasn’t a self-conscious bone in his body. He more likely thought neither of you would be interested. You don’t share the same fondness for his cat.”

“I feel bad,” Sam worried.

“Don’t,” said Eddie. “He really doesn’t care. But, if you two want to feel good, go on down there and say hi and show interest in his hobby. And praise his cat.”

It was this moment Dean realized Cassandra was pressed up against his leg, purring. Maybe he could make this one cat an exception to his phobia.

“Well, I gotta go,” Eddie turned to go back to his Jeep. “I was just leaving on a couple of missions when you two popped up out of the tunnel. Just go down through the other door to get back home.”

“Okay.” Sam waggled the ruby pencil in his hand in Eddie’s direction.

Dean looked over at the pencil and said, “You know Sammy gets all the cool knicky-knack stuff. Why don’t I get anything?”

Eddie was amused. “Follow me and I’ll give you something to take home that I know you will like.” He passed the barn and headed to his house. This property did have a house.

Dean and Sam followed Eddie into his house and into the kitchen where Eddie fished a bottle out of the dish drying rack and rummaged around a bit for the lid. Then he filled the bottle with water from the sink and walked around the corner into the next room.

“Stay there,” Eddie said. “Otherwise you’ll forget I did this and it’ll be a waste of effort.”

From around the corner Eddie asked, “Dean. ‘You know what bathtub gin is?”

“Yeah, during Prohibition they made batches of gin in the tub for the speakeasies.” Dean knew much of the history of his favorite alcoholic drinks.

“Right,” said Eddie. He returned to the kitchen and held out the water which clearly had liquid of a different color. “Well, this is swimming pool whiskey. ‘Sorry I got you in trouble.”

It took a moment for it to kick in. Then Dean grinned. “The pool party. I got so drunk and Dad was so mad! You were there?”

“Yeah, way back then.” Back outside, Eddie headed to the Jeep and climbed in.

“Be good, guys,” said Eddie, and soon he was barreling down the lane in pursuit of his next miracle.

Dean turned to his brother and asked, “We threw eggs at gnomes? Why would eggs work? Why would we even have eggs?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose Cas can explain. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie pulled cartons of eggs out of his Jeep.”

“And did he say other properties? And tunnels go to them, too?”

“Um, yeah. I know what you’re thinking, but you couldn’t squeeze Baby through them.”

“Oh. Right...”

Dean with his bottle of whiskey and Sam with his ruby pencil headed around the back of the barn to visit with Castiel.

The End


	13. Chapter 13

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 13

“Scorpion!”

Bang! The Winchester brothers were demon hunting at the abandoned Squires Copper Mine outside Ely, Nevada.

“Dean, there aren’t any scorpions in this part of Nevada,” said Sam.

“Maybe you shot a rattlesnake.” It was Eddie, once again sitting on his Jeep. This one was blue.

Shaking the sensation of deja vu, Sam said, “Eddie! What are you doing here? Placing dibs on one of our demons?”

“I hope I don’t have to.” Eddie poked a stick at the remains of Dean’s creature. “Hmmmm. Where I come from we call this a crawdad. Dean, you saved us all from a crawdad.”

Dean peeked over Eddie’s shoulder. “But I shot it dead center,” he announced proudly.

“Yep! Dead center,” Eddie agreed.

Sam attempted to steer the conversation. “We’re following up on a report of demons taking over the last family living in the ghost town here and the demons are reported to be holed up in the mine office.”

“Sounds like what Timothy told me. If I’m quick enough I can catch Ezekial Squires, the only one left not infested before they get him, too.”

“Then let’s get going,” Sam led the way into town to search.

There were three houses and a two-story building and all of them were ramshackle. An ancient-looking woman walked weakly out from behind the closest house and eyed the men. “You got water? We’re out of water.” Her eyes were dark and she could barely stand.

A young boy stood at the corner of the house watching them. Eddie was sure it was the Zeke he had come for.

Sam pulled out his canteen and held it out. But instead of handing it to the old woman when she reached out for it, he poured the contents over her head.

She began screeching and her body began to smoke as she collapsed to the ground dead.

“Holy water,” Sam said to Eddie, “A demon.”

“Mom!” The boy called out from by the house. “Mom!”

Demon smoke poured from the corpse’s mouth and eyes and sailed directly to the boy and entered his body. The boy raced towards the office building.

“That’s the boy Zeke!” Eddie charged after the lad, but Zeke was too fast. He ran into the building and closed the door securely behind him before Eddie could get close enough to pull the demon out. He tried the door and then the window beside it. He pressed his hands against the side of the building but could not change its chemical make-up.

The Winchesters caught up and the men searched around the building for a way to get in. Sam recognized some of the warding marks that would keep them from entering in any way they tried.

“Drat, drat, drat!” Eddie shook his fists.

“Okay,” he said after settling down. “It’s time to get the door.” He marched away from the building.

“The door?” asked Dean. He and Sam hurried after Eddie. “What’s the door?”

“That kid called the old lady Mom. She’s too old to be his mother,” Eddie commented, distracted.

“She was probably a lot younger than she looked,” said Sam. “The demon aged the body. I bet it had pretty well used up the body by the time we came and it was ready to abandon it. It would’ve probably tried to enter one of us if I hadn’t surprised it with the holy water test.”

“So,” Dean interjected as they arrived at the cars. “Did you buy a new Jeep? This one’s blue.”

“No, this is my Utah car, the one I keep in my barn near Richfield. I keep a car on each of my properties. Next time you see me in Kansas, it’ll be in a deep green Wildcat. The one in Tennessee is a small pick-up.

“Tennessee?” Dean chimed in.

“Yeah, up in the mountains. That’s the one with the portal to the magical lands through where I have contact with Glinda the Good of Oz. You met her during the battle with the gnomes you don’t remember. It’s home base for a colony of elves and fairies who are here to collect up their people who end up in our world and need to get back. And speaking of Glinda, she gave me this door in case I accidentally get warded out of one of my barns.” Eddie popped open the Jeep’s tailgate and pulled out a standard-looking wooden door. “Hold this please.”

Eddie stood the door on its base and Dean grabbed it by the top corner and held it steady.

Eddie rummaged through the back of the Jeep and pulled out a can and pried it open. It contained a powder that Eddie sprinkled all over the door. He checked the hinged edge. “I think it’s ready.”

They headed back to the building with the door in tow and stood it up outside the office door. Eddie lifted it up and pressed its hinged edge against the building wall and held it. When he took his hands away from the door it remained attached. Eddie closed the door against the wall.

“Are we ready? ‘Both of you armed?” asked Eddie. Dean and Sam displayed their weapons.

“Then here we go.” Eddie opened the door exposing the room inside and all three rushed into the office building.

They surprised three demons in the room. Dean and Sam quickly dispatched the two adults with their demon-killing swords as Zeke ran into the next room. Eddie pushed on the door to discover it was locked.

Eddie pressed on hand on the wall beside the door and pointed to the far corner of the room yelling, “Look! Elvis!”

Sam and Dean looked to where Eddie had pointed. Of course Elvis was not there. When they looked back at Eddie, they noticed the large hole in the wall behind him.

“Made you not look!” said Eddie cheerfully. “If you don’t see the miracle you won’t forget me.”

“Good move, Eddie,” said Sam. He and Dean followed Eddie into the next room. Two demons in addition to the boy had anticipated them.

They were not quick enough to save Zeke. The child disappeared as Eddie approached him and before he could draw out the demon. So he held one hand in the direction of one of the demons and drew its essence into his hand. It formed the usual black ball and faded away. As he dissolved the lifeless body, Dean charged at the other demon and dispatched it with a quick cut across the neck.

Eddie was exasperated. “Drat, drat, drat!”

He had hope it wouldn’t come to what he would have to do now. “Okay. Now I’ll have to go to Hell to get him.” He turned to duck through the opening in the wall to head out of the building.

“Go to Hell?” asked Dean.

“You mean you can just pop into Hell and pop Zeke out?” Sam added.

“Um, yeah. Actually I’ll walk in, but essentially I’ll go in, pull the demon out of Zeke and walk him back out. Timothy sends me on missions into Hell all the time. Care to come with?”

Sam and Dean studied each other’s reaction for a while as Eddie worked the hinges of the magic door away from the building.

“How do you......walk in?” Sam ventured.

“I have a portal to Hell on my Utah property like I have a portal to the fairylands on my property in Tennessee.,” Eddie offered.

“You have a portal...to...Hell. Okay. Somehow I’m not shocked. Will we forget it after it’s all over?” Dean was still doubtful about the whole idea.

“All you have to do is look away from me when I say to do so, and you won’t forget a thing.”

“Okay then. Let’s go,” said Dean looking towards Sam and holding up his hands. Sam nodded his head in agreement. Dean grabbed one end of the door and helped Eddie carry it to the Jeep.

They were going to make a raid on Hell.


	14. Chapter 14

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 14

Eddie pulled up to the café in Richfield, Utah and soon the Winchesters pulled up beside him in Baby. After enjoying a home-cooked style meal they were off to Eddie’s Utah property up in the mountains.

Eventually they finished driving on a winding lane that ended at a familiar-looking green-and-white barn sitting on a level spot on a mountain side. Eddie pulled open the barn doors and they pulled their vehicles into the barn on opposite sides of the usual two doors in the floor.

“I thought the location was ideal being close to interstates 70 and 15.” said Eddie. “It was a decent stopover and now that the tunnels have been set up it shortens my trips out west immensely. I could also claim I had a mine here to cover for being able to turn in gold for cash all the time back home. There being a portal here was just a bonus I wasn’t expecting.”

They stepped out of the barn and Eddie pointed to dark rock on the mountainside. “There it is. I want to commune with Timothy before we go, so make yourselves comfortable and we’ll be walking there in about half an hour. The door at the end of the barn there takes you to the kitchen and lounge.”

The portal was far closer than the Winchester brothers thought they would find, so Sam asked. “Aren’t you afraid of demons coming out of there? I expected to pass some on the way here.”

“Um, no, not a problem,” Eddie assured him. “Demons just transport themselves from Hell to Earth without any physical passageway. They don’t need a portal to do that. I doubt anyone there is even aware of the portal. At least I have never met one near or inside the entrance.”

“How many times have you been to Hell?” Dean was astonished. Considering the horrendous experiences he and Sam had in Hell, he couldn’t imagine anyone going there on purpose.

“I’ve lost count,” said Eddie. “Every now and then I go in and do a ‘retrieve-and-rebirth’ on a human condemned to Hell. I might even grab one during this visit. I’ll be checking with Timothy about that during my meditation.”

They entered the living quarters and Eddie set out a recorder by a bed in one of the rooms, then laid back, folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes. Dean and Sam searched for the kitchen for refreshments. They heard Timothy speaking through Eddie in the usual unfamiliar language.

Later Eddie came into the lounge where the boys were watching the television screen. He tucked a copper pencil into Sam’s shirt pocket.

“That’s just in case you witness me doing something that will block your memory,” he said. “You can ask me about it if there is a gap in what you recall about this trip.”

Then into the kitchen and back with a bottle for Dean. “Scotch. Good stuff. Just don’t drink it on the road.”

Dean admired the contents and tucked the bottle into Baby’s trunk on their way out of the barn. Then they were off to the portal.

The dark slab seemed out of place on the mountain side. That was because it was artificially made. Eddie pressed a hand on the slab, turned around and looked up into the sky.”

“Hey! Those clouds look just like chorus girls doing the can-can!”

Dean and Sam looked up, saw nothing in the sky, and looked back and saw nothing but a big hole where the black slab had been and Eddie in the middle of it.

“Made you not look again.”

The threesome walked into the tunnel which, in spite of no direct lighting, still somehow allowed them to see where they were walking. Sam and Dean could not figure how the tunnel got them from the barn to the exact room where Zeke was, but it was a surprisingly short walk.

Demon Zeke and several other demons turned to see them. All but Zeke collapsed as their demon essences were drawn to Eddie, who gathered them and dissolved them into air. Zeke was left standing minus the demon that had control of his body.

“Come on! We’ve got to go!” called Eddie and pulled Zeke by his shoulder.

“Where are we? How’d I get here?” Zeke looked around him as they re-entered the tunnel.

“In the mine. We’re taking a back tunnel out the other side,” said Eddie. He scraped off bits from the wall and showed them to to Zeke, and then transformed them into copper. It seems to satisfy the boy and reinforced the idea he was still at home.

It looked like it would be a quick trip back to the barn. But after a while they could hear a man’s voice screaming in pain from beyond the tunnel wall. It got worse as they progressed. Dean and Sam stopped to looked around to see if there was a way towards the voice.

Eddie stopped, too. “You want to save him?” He knew it was a dumb question. They were the Winchesters. Of course they did.

Eddie pressed a hand against the tunnel wall. It gave way to show a fire-lit room displaying all the gruesome effects of a torture chamber. A human was hanging on meat hooks in agony as demons tore layers of flesh from his body.

“I thought they had given up on physical torture here,” gasped Eddie. “They’re trying to turn this guy into a demon like them.”

Sam ran in and shoved his demon-knife straight into the chest one of the demons. Dean headed towards the other but turned and headed back into the tunnel, so Eddie destroyed the demon himself. With the demons destroyed, Sam looked from the victim to Eddie holding his hands out as if to ask, “what do we do now?”

In the tunnel, Dean was sitting and puking his lungs out and crying uncontrollably.

Eddie asked Sam quietly. “What am I missing?”

“They once did that to Dean. The torture lasted a long time and almost turned him.”

“Oh.”

Eddie walked over to Dean and put a hand on his shoulder. “Get up Dean! We’re going back in.”

Dean looked up as if Eddie were stone cold nuts.

“Seriously, Dean. Get up!” Eddie repeated. “We are going in. We are going to fix this. And the guy will be saved. Come on.!”

Finally Eddie got Dean to stand and aimed him to the chamber. Pushing him with one hand, Eddie held the other in front of Dean’s face. “Just watch the hand. All you have to do is watch my hand and I’ll do the rest. Sam! Keep Zeke out in the tunnel.”

Eddie and Dean entered the chamber and approached the torture victim. Eddie took his hand from in front of Dean’s face and held it directly over the other man’s face.

Eddie asked, “Would you like to escape this? Are you willing to be reborn?”

Through the pain the man said, “Help.....me!”

“Good enough.” Eddie pressed his hand against the man’s face and the cries ended. The body went limp.

Eddie withdrew his hand and showed to Dean something that was now buried in it: a whitish orb about the size of a cue ball. It was just clear enough for one to see wisps of something suspended in it.

Eddie handed the globe to Dean. “Don’t squish it, Dean. Look after it. His soul is in there. Take it to the hall while I finish here.”

Dean carried the orb out to hall, holding it close as if it could collapse if he didn’t.

Eddie turned back to the body and placed his hands on it, causing its form to break down into different compounds until it at last vanished in a mist. He altered the elements of the surrounding equipment until they turned into water and washed across the gore on the floor. By the time he walked out, there was nothing left in the chamber.

“Let’s go!” Eddie urged the others on to the entrance, which they reached in a matter of minutes.

They headed to the barn and looked back at the portal entrance. Nothing had followed them.

Dean carefully coddled the sphere, until Eddie looked over at him and said, “It’s actually not at all as delicate as I let on. You can even drop it and not injure it. Here, put it in this.”

Eddie pulled out a first-aid kit box from the back of his Jeep and emptied its contents. Dean laid the orb in the box and added lengths of gauze to keep it from being jostled about.

“One last thing. You guys want to help?” Eddie grabbed some fire extinguishers from the barn and passed them out.

They headed back to the entrance as Eddie explained, “I need something more solid than air to convert into rock. The foam in these are solid enough to speed up the process.”

So the others sprayed a layer of foam across the entrance floor, then turned away as to not witness Eddie then converting the foam into rock. They repeated the process until the entrance was closed from bottom to top. The black slab had been restored.

“Stay the night?” asked Eddie. “We still have to settle things at Squires Mine and get Zeke set up with someone in Ely. If you do that, I can take care of Dean’s little friend.”

They agreed to stay the night. Sam checked online to find an official who could help the newly-orphaned Zeke and meet them at the mine to recover the mother’s body. He’d call them tomorrow from the Squires home after making sure no unnatural evidence was still there.


	15. Chapter 15

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 15

In the morning Sam arose and headed to the kitchen where Dean was already percolating coffee. On the way he could hear Eddie listening to the playback of Timothy’s comments on his recorder. Zeke was apparently still asleep.

“Sorry that there wasn’t much to eat. I had planned to just take the tunnel home,” Eddie said as he entered the kitchen. I ran home last night and got the donuts there.” The men seemed satisfied with the box of fresh donuts that had been left for them on the table.

“You just walked home through the tunnel and got them?” Sam asked.

“Well, I called Castiel earlier and he bought a box of them and ran them from Kansas to the house in Indiana and I was able to pick them up there later.” Eddie took one of the donuts.

“Do you suppose we could use the tunnels?” Sam was considering options for him and Dean to reach distant locations in much less time.

“I don’t see why not. You can even use the cars in the barns as long as I don’t need them at the time.”

“Wow! That would be great!” said Dean. “It’ll save in gas and lodging and restaurant food. We don’t really have that much money...”

“No problem there either,” Eddie picked up an empty cup, held it outside the room and pulled it back solid gold. “No problem at all for good friends with a common cause. Just let me know when your finances get low.”

Zeke entered. “I think I just saw a blue coffee cup turn gold. Or something...wow, I’m not awake yet.”

“Say, Sam,” Eddie asked. “Do you want to take the Jeep and take care of Zeke in Ely? I’m thinking of asking Dean to come with me to Provo. Timothy says the situation will be right for a rebirth for his little friend. I already arranged for a medical van miracle at the same hospital so we can perform two miracles at one time.”

Dean jumped at that. “I could do that? Without you doing anything?”

“Yeah, you could do it. Without me present. I’ll be outside doing my own thing.”

“Come on, Zeke,” Sam said. “Let’s get you home.”

Eddie threw the Jeep keys in Sam’s direction.

Not long after the blue Jeep left with Sam and the boy in it, Dean and Eddie were on their way to Provo in the Impala.

Dean got the call from Sam shortly after the Impala arrived at the hospital in Provo. He was going with the story that Zeke was found in the further reaches of the Squires copper mine and they had left in some second entrance. Zeke was buying it and, hopefully, so would the authorities. He hadn’t decided fully if he was going to tag along when Zeke was taken to his mother at the Squire home when he knew the mother wouldn’t be found.

“Pull over here, Dean,” Eddie pointed towards where a medical transport vehicle sat and Dean pulled Baby up beside it.

“Eddie!” The driver jumped out of the van and walked to its rear.

“Hiya, Paul!” Eddie climbed out of the car and followed him. “How many vials today?”

“We need sixty vials of mostly uncommon types to keep up with the need. Plus a couple generic for research. And I have some pans for your artificial flesh. By the way, one of the medical research companies might have finally duplicated your universal flesh substance. We might not need you to create dummy skin really soon.”

“That’s great, Paul,” Eddie motion Dean to the back of the van.

Dean peeked in back to see carrier crates full of capped vials with markings, and racks of shallow pans.

“I’ll be in here creating blood and skin while you are in the hospital,” Eddie said. “Are you ready?”

Dean held up the first-aid kit box. “I think so.”

Eddie handed him hospital garb and told Paul, “Could you get him changed and to the nursery in maternity? Just leave him there.”

“Can do! Let’s head in, Dean.” Paul motioned to the delivery entrance.

Dean handed the kit to Paul so he could pull on the surgery costume and the gloves on the way in. He leaned back against the wall inside the door to pull the booties over his shoes. He tucked one hand in a pants pocket and felt something. “Cool! A stethoscope!”--it went around his neck. And he took the orb from the first-aid kit and stuffed it in the other pants pocket.

Paul nodded with satisfaction and led Dean into the maternity wing and outside the window to the nursery. He handed him his key card; the nursery door would be locked.

Dean leaned back against the wall outside the nursery and try to act nonchalant as Paul walked away with the empty first-aid kit. He looked over the infants a couple of times and nodded as one proud daddy called him over to point out his newly born daughter. Otherwise, he stood unbothered.

He peeked in once to see the nurse tending to the infants. Keep calm. He saw her stop and stoop over one tiny boy and anxiously poke and rearranged the contents of the crib. Wait for it...wait for it... She rushed over to a desk for the phone. Dean’s chest tightened.

Over the public address he heard “code blue nursery.” That’s it; he shoved the key card into the reader and pulled up his surgical mask.

“I got it!” he called out as he approached the crib. “Soak a towel in warm water for me.” Such an act made no sense to him, but it should keep the nurse preoccupied just long enough.

Dean picked up the non-breathing infant and balanced it on one arm with its tiny head in his hand. With the other hand he pulled the orb from out of his pocket. He pressed the orb against the child’s chest and slowly rolled it around. And rolled it and rolled it. Come on!

The nurse came up behind him. “What are you doing?”

Then he felt it: The orb was sinking into the infant’s body. He rubbed his hand over it until he could no longer feel a lump.

Dean felt the infant’s chest heave a bit. And the tiny boy grimaced and took a breath. And then came a glorious blood-curling scream.

Dean grinned back at the nurse. “Uh, he’s good. You wanna take over?”

She tossed the towel aside--what was she supposed to have done with it anyway?--and straightened out the bedding. Dean laid the boy in the crib and backed up to let the nurse attend to it.

“Happy birthday,” Dean whispered and slipped out through the door. A doctor came up to the door and Dean let him in saying, “He’s good. He’s good.”

Walking down the corridor, Dean was excited. He wasn’t sure at first if it was the relief of getting out of the room without getting arrested or if he needed to pee, but it felt good. He had singlehandedly assisted in a soul’s rebirthing. He had given a condemned soul a second chance.

“Feels fine, doesn’t it,” said Eddie as Dean approached the medical van. Eddie was pulling off his scrubs. Paul was unloading a few of the trays of vials, their contents bright red, and carting them into the hospital.

“Yeah! Can we do that again?”

“I know it can get addictive.” Eddie took Dean’s scrubs and let him keep the stethoscope. He threw all the material into a laundry bin in the van.

They hopped into Dean’s Impala and headed back south to Richfield.

Sam drove up to the barn in the Jeep about an hour after Dean and Eddie had settled in. He pulled belongings out of the passenger side of the vehicle and toted them over to the Impala. “I’m hungry he said. Hungry and weary.”

Dean opened the Impala’s trunk, “So how’d it go?”

“Well, the police were already looking around the houses at the mine. I took Ezekial there and an officer took him with her. I asked if there were anything I could do, but they said ‘no.’ They were searching for any persons there, his mother in particular, and were finding no one. Zeke was telling him he was lost in the mine and came out the back side, so I guess they were going to go into the mine next. Nobody asked how or where I found him and I didn’t push the topic. I asked where Zeke would be taken if they didn’t find anyone. I guess everyone he was related to lived in one of the houses at the mine. I was told they’ll probably look for foster parents for the kid.”

“Does Castiel know how to make chili?” Eddie cut in on Sam’s story. He had his cell phone out. “He said he’s making chili. We can go through the tunnels to the barn by your bunker and eat with Castiel and you can come back for the car later.”

Dean and Sam looked at each other in mock horror.

“I don’t recall Castiel ever opening a cookbook,” said Dean.

“Yeah,” said Sam. “He watches us like a hawk when one of us cooks, but he hasn’t actually handled the kitchenware himself. I least not while I was around.”

“So, let’s see what he can do,” Eddie asserted bravely. “Chili is not something I can reformulate -- not homogenous enough. But I’m game to suffer through it if I have to.

“I doubt he could mess it up bad enough I couldn’t fix it with some spices,” said Sam.

“Oh, we of little faith,” chuckled Eddie. “Let’s go have chili. I’ll pick up oyster crackers at my place.”

It was agreed. A meal prepared by Castiel. Eddie pulled up the door in the floor of the barn and followed Sam and Dean down the steps.


	16. Chapter 16

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 16  
  
Eddie Timms drove down a road outside Sioux Falls.  Eventually he reached a curve, pulled over and climbed out of his Jeep.  He walked along the roadside and to an enormous oak tree behind the curve.  
  
“A tree on a curve with no guardrail.  An accident waiting to happen,”  he said to himself.  
  
He walked up to the oak and drew two red crossing curved lines and a dot in garnet on the trunk with his finger.  A simple fish design.  “Fishing for mens’ souls,” he mumbled.  
  
Back to the Jeep.  Eddie turned the Jeep around and headed back into town.  
  
At the Blue Collar Bar he recognized a beat up silver sedan parked nearby.  He parked and walked inside.  
  
He saw a familiar face.  Trent Marshall.  It hadn’t been a good week for Trent.  He looked bad a week ago when Eddie first introduced himself.  He didn’t look any better tonight.  
  
“Hiya, Trent!”  Eddie plopped down on the seat next to him and ordered orange juice from the bartender.  “I’m back from Utah.  Anything new while I was gone?”  
  
“I think my wife is closer to leaving me.  Otherwise, no, it’s as stressful as before.  Something’s got to change.”  
  
Eddie summarized Trent’s situation for him. “So you two are still with you parents and they are still a burden.  And work is still horrendous.  And there’s still no way to break up the stress of the whole thing.”  
  
“Sorry if I’m repeating...”  Trent put his face down in his hands.  
  
“If the situation hasn’t changed, it calls for repeating yourself,”  Eddie looked around Trent at a couple of empty glasses.  “Any chance a medication is conflicting with what you’re drinking?”  
  
“You a doctor?”  
  
“Nope.  And I don’t play one on TV.  I’m just trying to come up with ideas you might not have thought of.”  
  
“I don’t really care to find out.  Everything is a mess.  I don’t see a break coming anytime soon”  
  
“Can you get away by dropping a burden or two and let them be someone else’s burden?”  
  
Trent just looked at him and Eddie knew he had reached the limit in this conversation.  He threw bills on the bar and slipped off his stool.  “Yeah.  I’m leaving before I add to your burden.  Hey, hope something good happens, Trent.”  
  
Going out the door, Eddie called back, “See ya at the other end of this.”  
  
“The other end of what?”  Trent wanted to asked, but Eddie was already out of sight.  
  
Another drink later Trent paid the barkeep, who looked him over, worried.  
  
“I’m okay,”  Trent assured her, “Just weary.  I gotta step out and stretch some.”  
  
He went to get in his sedan and looked up to see Eddie’s red Jeep.  He wondered for a moment where Eddie would be now but his own problems began looming over him and he pulled them in with him into the driver’s seat.  Time to go home.  Home where the problems hadn’t changed in a town that provided him no hope and a work environment from which he could not fathom a way to escape.  
  
Trent pulled out onto the road home.  Leaving Sioux Falls, the road became gloomier as did Trent’s thoughts.  Until finally he decided this time he actually would end it all.  This time he would follow through.  
  
The thought had been on his mind for some time now.  It would be quick and easy.  He knew the curve.  He knew the very tree he passed every day, thinking all it would take would be to press on the accelerator and keep going straight.  Any pain would be short.  All that had been holding him back was the fear that he might miss his target and not die.  But right now his thoughts wouldn’t leave the route off the road and straight into the white oak.  
  
He reached under the dash and pulled wires that he had tagged in a previous bout of gloomy meditation.  Good-bye alarms, good-bye air bag.  
  
He sped up on the quiet two-lane road.  No traffic.  He heard no sounds.  He felt nothing but the undeniable urge to go and go and not stop.  
  
First curve to the right and then straight.  Okay, the next curve would be it.  Trent sped up.  
  
He saw the curve ahead and sped up more.  The headlights reflected off the tree.  He sped up more.  The car left the road at the curve and went airborne.  No turning back.  
  
But, Trent’s last thought was, “I made a mistake...”  His last view was a crudely drawn red fish on the tree.  He couldn’t look away.  
  
When the car reached the tree, there wasn’t the expected crunch of metal bending or bits of glass and bark entering his face.  
  
Instead, there was a thunderous roar like an ocean wave and a deluge of water flushed over the windshield.  
  
The car landed and dragged across the ground to a quick stop, defying the fact there had been a tree blocking it.  
  
Finally large tree limbs began dropping onto the hood and roof of the car.  Again and again with each branch came the thunder of wood to metal until the car was buried entirely under branches.  
  
It all stopped and he was still alive.  Trent felt around him and finally dared to feel his own face and chest.  He was uninjured!  
  
He climbed out of the car and looked over the damage.  His car was under a massive pile of branches from the tree.  The front end was not crushed, it was merely gone.  The car itself was resting directly on the ground because there were no wheels to support it.  He saw a couple of the tires in the distance.  
  
Trent sat down by the road and laughed at the whole thing.  Then he pulled out his smartphone and made a call.  
  
“Hi.  Mandy?  I had a little accident but I’m okay.  The car’s a mess.  I have to call the police and report it and have the car towed away.  No, it’s definitely totaled.  We have insurance, Babe.”  
  
He paused a moment.  “Uh, Mandy.  I’m thinking you are right about moving out from my parents house.  They aren’t helpless, and I’ve decided to quit worrying about the house being in the will.  Actually I don’t even like the place.  Maybe if I left and just visited to make sure they are okay, they’d come to their senses and scaled down to a smaller house on one level.  We can start in an apartment.  If you are willing to take a part-time job, I think I can quit my job that’s dragging me down and get a lower paying job while I look around.  Sound okay?  Good.  I’ll have the police drop me off.  ‘Nite.”  
  
Trent laid back for a moment before making the next call.  It felt good right now.  The future did not look as dismal as he had been thinking.  He could make this work.  
  
The next afternoon Sam Winchester and Castiel were standing beside the car.  Sheriff Jody Mills was there, as was Trent Marshall.  
  
Trent had gathered up the four wheels and pointed out to everyone that there were no axles on the car.  Besides no bumper, no grille, and one missing door.  And there were branches everywhere but he found no sign of a tree trunk or even a stump.  
  
Salt was everywhere: on the ground; all over the car, especially where parts were missing; and on the exposed end of every fallen tree branch.  The salt was why Sheriff Mills had called Sam.  Was it something demonic?  Witchcraft?  Surely at least something supernatural.  
  
“It was a miracle!”  assured Trent.  “If I see Eddie again, I’ve got to tell him about this.  He’d like  it.”  
  
Sam’s head jerked in Trent’s direction,  “Eddie Timms?”  
  
“Yeah!  You know him?”  Trent smiled.  
  
Trent’s wife arrived in his parents’ car, so he climbed in and waved to the others as they left.  
  
“Jody,” Sam said.  “I think Sioux Falls  had a visit from an apostle of the Lord.”  
  
“How could he be so reckless!”  An aggravated Castiel pulled his head out from the passenger side of the car.  He was checking the edges of the missing back door.  “First he takes you and Dean into Hell.  Then he does this!  Doesn’t he grasp the concept of losing his own life?”  
  
“You guys went to Hell this week?”  Jody asked Sam.  “On purpose?”  
  
“Uh, yeah,” admitted Sam.  “It seemed like fun at the time. What are you going on about, Cas?”  
  
Castiel looked sternly at other the two.  “Eddie was in the car as this happened.”


	17. Chapter 17

When Eddie left Trent at the Blue Collar Bar, he grabbed some towels from the back of his Jeep and took them to Trent’s car. He touched his finger to the back door lock assembly and dissolved it, opened the door and threw in the towels. Then he climbed in and closed the door behind him. While he waited for Trent to came out of the bar, Eddie busied himself arranging the towels under and behind the front seat and changing the chemical make-up of the seats, floor and towels around him to provide cushion for the impact he expected if he failed in the task to come.

By the time Trent did exit the bar, Eddie was comfortably swaddled in cushioning on the floor in back. Trent climbed in front, started the engine and slowly drove out of the parking spot and down the road out of town.

Timothy was right to inform Eddie that this was the night. Eddie could tell in the bar that Trent was hitting bottom and would not be receptive to talk. As the car sped up it was even more certain. The tires squealed a bit around one curve still inside town and the car sped up more. Eddie quietly wrestled with the cushioning to get himself positioned upright and able to peek through the windshield from the window side of the passenger headrest. He put his hand along the carriage frame and began turning metal parts into salt: strips of salt to the sub-frame, across the front bumper and grill and over non-vital parts of the engine. Then he took a breath and waited.

Another curve and then still faster. Now the tires left contact with the road and Eddie changed the axles to salt. He saw his red fish drawing on a salty white background, salty white because he had changed the tree trunk to salt before having drawn the red fish on it. When the salt portion of the car came into contact with the salt portion of the tree Eddie transformed the whole body of salt into water. He ducked back down and crouched into the cushions.

First, the rush of water as the salt-tree-trunk-turned-to-water collapsed onto the car. Then, the thump of the car dropping to the ground and sliding while all four wheels separated from the axles-now-water and rolled ahead of the car. And finally, the thumping of large oak tree branches dropping onto and around the car – Eddie couldn’t change the whole tree to salt earlier without it all collapsing.

When everything settled down, Eddie moved his joints and limbs so assure he was okay. He heard Trent stir. When the front door handle jiggled, he arose.

Trent heard him and looked back, “What the hell?”

“Shhhh,” Eddie touched the back door, which changed into water and collapsed to the ground. He climbed out. “Don’t even think about it. When I’m out of sight you won’t remember anyway,” He stepped out and walked away from the car and down the road.

Sure enough, Trent didn’t remember Eddie. The sight of the car’s condition and the realization he had survived unharmed was fodder enough for his thoughts.

Eddie had walked as far as the Sioux Falls city limits by the time Sheriff Jody Mills zipped past him going the opposite direction. To Eddie it was another mission accomplished and he didn’t mind the long walk at all. He felt satisfied. And hungry. He would seek out an all-night restaurant before heading back to Indiana. He thought about checking up on Trent later that week, but he knew Trent wouldn’t be visiting the bar any more and he wasn’t going to meddle more than that in Trent’s future.

Two days later, Eddie woke up to a pressure on his chest. He knew it was the cat Cassandra, even though she should have been in the barn in Kansas. Then he opened his eyes and saw Castiel standing at his bedside, watching him dispassionately.

“Hiya, Castiel!”

“Good morning, Eddie,” Castiel said, “I talked with Timothy this morning. We talked about you taking Sam and Dean into Hell and risking your life in Sioux Falls. Timothy is fine with your actions. He has no qualms. I am concerned. I am a guardian for the Winchester family and I would rather be present when they go to such a dangerous place as Hell. And I cannot grasp Timothy letting you risk you life in a speeding car aimed at a large tree. Humans generally do not survive that.”

Eddie sat up. He said nothing.

“So,” Castiel continued, “in our conversation I suggested I invoke angelic guardianship over you. You are only beholden to your soul, but I want to watch over your well-being as I already do for Dean, Sam and Mary Winchester. At least if you get yourself mangled and I can restore your body and you can live on. Timothy accepted this without question.”

“So do I,” said Eddie somberly.

“Good! That settled, Sam and I are fixing pizza tonight and Sheriff Mills from Sioux Falls will join us. You mix the drinks, of course. We are all eager to hear your story about Trent Marshall.”

“Fine. See you all tonight.”

“Okay,” Castiel picked up Cassandra and headed to the barn. Eddie shut off the recorder and rolled over to sleep a bit longer.

That evening Eddie arrived at the bunker in his Wildcat. Dean offered up interest in his car. It was dark green with a white vinyl top. Eddie would have gone for a convertible, but then he would need another car for the bitter Kansas winters. Also, he chose the’63 model because it had fins and he was rather fond of the era when fins were the rage. And, oh yeah, at one time it was his dad’s.

In the bunker Dean introduced Eddie to Sheriff Mills and then led him to the kitchen where the glasses were already sitting by the sink ready for Eddie to mix drinks.

The sheriff said to Eddie, “I heard you are an apostle of the Lord.”

“Yes,” Castiel offered from behind her, “He can draw out demons, speak in tongues, and at parties he can walk across your pool and change the water into whiskey.”

“Thanks, Castiel,” Eddie said cheerfully. “I couldn’t have explained me better myself.”

Sam was just pulling a pizza loaded with meat out of the oven. He turned around and pulled a wooden pencil from his shirt pocket. Continuing their inside joke, he waggled it in front of Eddie. “We’re expecting a story,” he said. “Jody and I haven’t figured out how you handled the accident in Sioux Falls and Cas is being coy about telling us what he knows. So we’re having this meal to entice you into telling.” Sam grinned as Eddie rolled his eyes.

Eddie took drink orders and as the others took the food and utensils out to the dining room he filled glasses with water and changed the water to match their drink selections. He told his story between bites during the meal.

Afterwards, Jody told the men about a mission she was on. She had followed up on a story about new graves in a clearing behind a cemetery in Hannibal, Missouri. Curious officials had the bodies exhumed and found the victims had not been embalmed; they had been drained of blood through the large arteries and in some bodies internal organs were missing. Jody thought she had found ties between the bodies and nearby homes. Further research suggested a tie between one of their neighbors to a former sanitarium in St. Louis that had been converted into a private residential complex.

“Have you ever dealt with vampires?” Dean asked Eddie.

“No, I haven’t met one,” said Eddie. “None of my rescues have come at risk of becoming a victim to one yet. But, if these have the intention of harming non-vampires, I’m all in for stopping them. How many are we talking about?”

“I’m not sure yet how many there are,” Jody offered, “At least a dozen residents in one wing, maybe twenty. I’m not yet sure what is in the other wing. And I’m not totally sure yet they are vampires. We will definitely need a large group to do a raid if it turns out to be a vampire nest.”

“Okay,” said Sam. “Let Dean and me know when you need us and we’ll gather help.”


	18. Chapter 18

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 18

 

The next morning Sheriff Mills headed home to Sioux Falls. Unbeknownst to her at the time, her ward, Claire Novak, was at the door to the sanitarium in St. Louis. A ride with an uber driver got her into town, after which she found a nearby diner to sit in. Nine o’clock came around and she figured it was a good time to act.

A stout and simply-dressed lady met her at the double door. Good! Claire wasn’t sure at first if she should ring the bell or walk right in. There was no phone and list of room numbers to call. But there appeared to be a large lobby past the doors, suggesting guests would walk in.

“May I help you?” the lady asked.

“Um, yeah,” said Claire, “My company is assigned by the city gas company to go around and check the residences for gas leaks. I already checked the street meter. I don’t see the meter here.”

“Oh, it’s out back. Come on through. I’m Anica.”

“Thanks. I’m Claire. Do you run this place?”

They stepped into the wide foyer with its tile floors and plaster walls. From there a hallway wide enough to allow four to walk shoulder-to-shoulder stretched to the far side of the building. There was a closed double door to the right and an open hallway to the left.

“What are these for?” Claire pointed to a row of large square panels that lined the left side of the wide hallway.

“Service ports for the dining room,” Anica said. “We fill food carts in the kitchen and push them through these portals. See?” She pulled up one of the panels to show the opening behind it. “We eat smorgasbord style from several carts. Easy to serve and clean up afterwards.”

“Really!” Claire stepped into the left hall and looked between the double sliding doors into the dining room. It was a very large room with a long table down its length on the left below some windows and on the right were the back sides of the panels. A long wash trough stretched across the back of the room and a couple of flat screens were on the wall above them. A small door in the right rear showed a glimpse of the kitchen. “That reminds me. Do you have a gas range? I’ll want to test it for leaks.”

A deep male voice responded. “ No. Only the furnace and water heater are gas. Who is this, Anica?”

“Oh, Beryx! This young lady is here to check for gas leaks. I’m taking her out back to check the meter.”

Beryx was a tall man, slender with black hair and piercing gray eyes. He was dressed in black from his brimmed hat to his jacket and slacks. His expression signaled his doubt.

“Oh. When she is ready to check the furnace, I’ll take her.”

They were approaching the back door and Anica completed the tour. “The kitchen is to the left and the doors to the right go to the old TB ward – this building housed tuberculosis patients in the 40's and 50's. And this last door goes downstairs to the furnace.”

“Tuberculosis?” Claire had been assuming it was a different kind of sanitarium, the one for crazy people. “That was way before my time. Didn’t they have to put them in metal contraptions to breath for them?”

“They called them iron lungs, yes. That whole wing is just storage area now,” Beryx said while tapping on his smartphone.

Anica took Claire out back where Claire copied numbers off of the meter. She noticed the driveway that came up to the loading dock she was standing on and the forest that stretched across the back of the two wings of the building. Anica seemed amiable. Claire hoped her masquerade was working. It seemed to be.

Back inside, the basement door was already open and Beryx was on the stairs behind it. Claire followed him down. Halfway down the stairs, Beryx stopped and turned around.

“You aren’t working for the gas company. Why are you here?” he demanded.

“No, my company was hired by them,” said Claire.”

“No!” Beryx looked sternly into her eyes. “No, you are here for some other purpose! Look at me. Go to sleep!”

The last Claire remembered was the gray color of his eyes.

Jody was midway through Nebraska when she pulled her car over at a family restaurant. Once seated inside and her order given, she pulled out her smartphone. No answer from Claire, so she called her other ward, Alex, who answered.

“How are you girls doing?” Jody asked. “No problems I hope.”

“Well, one problem. Maybe.”

“Hmmm?”

“Well, Claire went to the sanitarium. When she called this morning she was at the door. I haven’t heard from her since. No response when I called later.”

“She shouldn’t be there alone! Okay, Alex, I’m going to St. Louis,” Jody pulled open the road atlas to re-plan her route. “Will you be okay for a couple more days?”

“No prob! Stay safe!”

Claire woke early that evening. She heard slurping and munching around her that sounded like a pack of dogs were feasting. Her head was resting on a pad and a firm collar hid the rest of her body. Her body was in a metal casing and there was a barrier inside that prevented her arms from reaching lower than her rib cage. Her legs seemed to be free, but it felt strange. Adult diaper. She had on an adult diaper. Obviously it wasn’t planned for her to leave this prison anytime soon.

She finally looked to her sides to see she was in the last of a row of iron lungs with a head sticking out each one. The side panel on each was open and blood was splattering to the floor from people feeding voraciously on blood from the victims’ bellies. Others sat on chairs at the table and chatted nonchalantly with each other. She assumed they were waiting for their turn to get their fill of fresh human blood. They were all in the dining room and she now understood why there were so many “ports” along the wall. These people did not go out to find their prey. Their prey were trucked in.

The man feeding at the iron lung beside hers looked over and grinned with blood dripping from his teeth and lips and down his chin. “Hey! The next one’s awake! Good! I like it better when they squeal and squirm. Can we keep her out of hypnosis?” No one suggested otherwise.

But Anica rushed into the dining room, stopping to shake off some gore she had stepped in from the sole of her shoe. It was all over the floor and even seeping out of the room under the lungs. “Company! A sheriff. Pull in the service carts and don’t say a word!” She backed out of the room and pulled the sliding door shut. Then someone locked them from inside. The iron lungs were pulled further into the room and someone on the outside began dropping the panels into place.

Anica was hurrying down the hallway to the TB ward as Sheriff Jody Mills, in uniform, entered the building. The sheriff got only a brief look of the interior before Beryx confronted her.

“This is a private residence. Why are you here?” he asked.

“I’m looking for someone. A missing person,” she replied.

“Nobody is missing here,” he rejoined.

“Okay, but this young woman was here today.” Jody held out a picture of Claire. “She hasn’t returned to her home town. May I come in and ask if anyone here has seen her?”

“Only with a warrant,” said Beryx. “We value our privacy and I’m not allowing any of the residents to be disturbed without good reason. As for this girl, she was here this morning reading meters. She came, she got her readings, and she left. Sorry I can’t help more than that. Now look at my eyes: Claire is not here, she is at home. You will leave and go back to your office.”

Sheriff Mills did leave as commanded and headed on to Sioux Falls.

She was north of Kansas City when she got the call from Alex. “Hello, Alex.”

“So, did you find her?” Alex said.

“She should be there.”

“Nope! Not here. I wouldn’t be trying on her clothes if she were around.”

“Oh. Hey, put her clothes back! You wouldn’t want her rummaging through your stuff.”

“Right! I already found a pair of my slacks in her stuff. Make that two pair.”

“Okay. Just... Oh, I don’t know. You’re both adults; that’s between you two.”

Jody hung up and pulled to the side of the road to think. Exactly why was she on her way home without Claire? That man’s hypnotic eyes. She had just accepted what he said with no thought about his words and left.

So, what did she remember? A woman hurrying down the hall and looking down as if she had stepped in something. The prints from the bottoms of her shoes trailed behind her. Those shoe prints were red. And, from under square panels along the left side of the hall, red oozed out. Good, Lord! Vampires were feeding while she was there and her mind had been too fogged to realize!


	19. Chapter 19

“Sam,” Jody called over the phone. “There are vampires active at the sanitarium we were discussing at your place. Claire’s there, I’m sure! I’m a couple hours away. I have to go in there as soon as I can. Who do you think are close enough to help? I can’t wait long. She might already be dead.”

“Okay, okay,” Sam replied from his phone. “Dean! Come on! We have to leave. Now! Uh, Jody we’ll be there as soon as we can. I’ll Google the address. If you aren’t with your car when we get there, I’ll assume you went inside. Okay?”

Jody was soon barreling east on I-70 to St. Louis. The Winchesters would be coming in from the west a few hours behind her. Dean drove as Sam began making calls. Eddie Timms in Indiana would be the closest to St. Louis. Sam called him first.

“Hiya, Sam!” That was Eddie.

“Eddie, there’s an emergency! We’re gathering anyone who can get to the sanitarium quickly. The one Jody was talking about. She thinks there’s a vampire nest there and that her daughter Claire is there now. It may be too late for any of us to actually help, but..”

“Then we’ll have to do this the quick and efficient way,” said Eddie. “I didn’t know about any daughter of Jody’s being there. Timothy confirmed vampires, but said nothing about a Claire. Get to the barn and take the tunnel here. I have some friends who will be ready. I’m going to call her now. Just get here as soon as you can.” He hung up.

Sam looked over to Dean. “Eddie has some people at his place who can help us, and said for us to go to the barn and take the tunnel. I don’t know what he has in mind, but we can’t drive to St. Louis in time. Do you think he has a tunnel to St. Louis?”

Dean stopped the car and thought for a few seconds, then turned the car around and headed towards Eddie’s barn near their bunker. “Probably one of those things he does that we forget. I hate not knowing what’s going on whenever he’s around. Okay, we will take the chance. But, if Claire dies because of this, I’ll kill him!”

Eddie had Jody on the phone. “Hiya, Jody! It’s Eddie. “Remember some of those stories told about me at the bunker? I have to trust you believe them. Well, I have some powerful friends that can be there to help in mere moments, we just need a beacon to home in on. When you get to the sanitarium, draw a circle on the side of the building and then draw the letter “Z” across it -- you know, like Zorro. Somewhere where there is open space in front of it. Once it’s drawn we will appear in front of it, so stay off to the side. Okay? Draw a circle, draw a “Z” across it and get out of the way. I promise it’ll work.”

Jody was silent. Finally, “You really walked under a lake and pieced Sam’s guts back together, huh? Okay. Castiel said it was true. I’ll believe... Draw a circle, draw a “Z” across it.”

“And get out of the way. Yes.” Eddie allowed some time before hanging up. He’d have Castiel call her before she got there to affirm what he said.

Castiel was already parked at the barn when the Winchesters arrived in the Impala. They walked into the barn, took the steps down, and came back up in Eddie’s barn in Indiana. Eddie already had the other door in the floor opened, so they followed him down those steps.

There were no steps at the other end of the tunnel this time, just a normal upright door. Opening the door revealed what looked like a huge white-floored ballroom lined with huge mirrors bordered with rare metals and jewels. Elaborate decorations hung from the ceiling, but none of them held lamps. Whatever light there was seemed to emanate from the ceilings themselves.

Two women dressed simply in red and white stood before them, each holding a tray with a glass of water and a red pill. “These are for Dean and Sam,” said one of them.

“What are they?” Dean pick up a pill and looked it over as if it might contain arsenic.

“He made them!” exclaimed Eddie. “Professor Wogglebug created memory pills for the students at his university. You take a pill, you learn basic math, or geometry, or engineering. He’d tell you it gives his students time for more important things like sports. He said he would make one that will make you and Sam remember what you experience in Oz when you leave the realm. Go ahead, take it.”

As they took their pills, Glinda and three men made of metal, two of steel and one of copper, walked into the room and up to the foursome. One of the men they recognized. It was Nick Chopper.ed her he

“Remember these?” Nick held two green-tipped axes. “I had to have them ground after we finished chopping gnomes with them. They’ll slice through anything.”

“Boy, I do!” Dean eagerly reached out for one of them. “I get to keep?”

“Yeah, you do, Dean,” said Eddie. “Hiya, Beau!”

The other steel man nodded to Eddie. “I’m Captain Fyter, Oz’s army.” You’ve met Nick here. And the copper man is Tik-tok. The Captain stepped back, flung his arms up and long steel blades slid out of them. They released and he grabbed them with his metal hands. The boys were dazzled.

“You are out-staging me, Beau,” said Glinda. “Sam, Dean, Eddie and Castiel. Welcome! These men should be all you need. They can’t be harmed and although Captain Fyter is the only military, Nick and Tik-tok can hold their own with an axe.”

She motioned towards one of the mirrors. “When Sheriff Mills draws her sigil on the building, we will have our beacon and we will see her and her surroundings. I’ll transport us to the location with this traveling belt. You’ve seen me use this. I’ll just tell it to take us there and we will be there.”

“I should get back to the barn then,” said Castiel. “One of us has to communicate with Jody but we can’t do it from here.” He looked down at his smartphone. “Right. No bars.”

Once back at Eddie’s place in Indiana, Castiel called Jody. She must have been racing because she was already nearing the sanitarium. He reminded her, “circle, crossed with a ‘Z’ and get out of the way.”

Jody soon called back. “Castiel, I’m here. It looks bad. There must be thirty cars there now. How many vampires would that be? That drive cars? This isn’t just a little impoverished group hanging around an abandoned building. This is a sophisticated set up. Someone is guarding the door.” 

“I think we can still handle it, Jody,” replied Castiel. “We have help. Just get to the building and draw the sigil. Can you do that?”

“I can do that,” she said.

“Okay. I’ll be out of contact. I’m heading back to join the group.”

Jody eased the sheriff’s car into the parking area and in among the other cars. She decided to avoid the main entrance. There was space at the end of the right wing of the building. And with the forest behind it and the sun getting low, the shadows should disguise her presence. She would go there and draw the sigil.

With a marker from the car, Jody slipped between cars to the far end of the building, dashed through the shadows into the trees, then back to the entrance to the wing. She drew the circle on the wall by the door.

“A sheriff drawing graffiti on our place?” The speaker had a hold of her arm and another man grabbed her other arm. “We watched you arrive on the monitors. Come on. Let’s add you to the...menu.” His grin revealed fangs; confirmation there was a vampire nest inside.

They took Jody inside and into a large room with rows of iron lungs. A human head stuck out from nearly all of them. Jody’s eyes searched for Claire’s. Too many of them. She sought an open wall. She needed to draw the sigil. But she couldn’t swerve the men towards a wall.

“So, what’s the marker for?” asked the one captor. The other behind her was practically drooling on her neck.

Jody had an inspiration. She took the marker and drew the circle on the palm of her left hand and crossed it with the letter ‘Z.’

“This,” she said, and held her palm out towards the vampire.

“What?” His face expressed confusion, but then surprise as he was lifted up by his hair clutched in a metal hand. Then a steel sword slashed through his neck. His body dropped as his head was flung to the side.

The metal face behind him told Jody, “You’re welcome! Now duck!” Captain Fyter pushed her head down with one metal hand and slashed his sword through the neck of the vampire behind her.


	20. Chapter 20

“Hiya, Sheriff Mills! Meet my friends!” Eddie waved from behind Captain Fyter, relieving a bit her shock from the unexpected rescue. “This is Beau, er...This is Captain Fyter. We told you about Nick Chopper over there and the gold guy, uh, copper man is Tik-tok. We’re here to slay vampires!”

Nick Chopper was already hacking at the vampires who were tending to the encased humans. They fled but none of them reached the far door. Tik-tok was at the entrance Jody had been brought in through.

Castiel looked over the victims and found Claire. He brought her out of her spell. “Should I wake the others?” he asked Jody.

“Cas! I’m so glad you’re here,” Claire cried out. “I was almost vampire food. If Jody hadn’t come to the door earlier, I would’ve been done for.” She banged her elbows against the casing. “Can you get me out? And, uh, we all might be a bit soiled at the other end, if you grasp what I mean.”

Castiel and Sam both searched her iron lung for knobs or latches to open it.

“Why don’t I help Castiel with this,” suggested Glinda. “We need Castiel to revive them, but Sam should help overcome the vampires. The place is swarming with them. “I think Sheriff Mills and I can handle the people here.”

At that, Captain Fyter took control. “Nick, you go through the doors and into the kitchen, then from the back entrance towards the front. Tik-tok, you and Eddie go outside and close up any chances of escape, then work your way in through the other wing of the building. Sam and Dean, I’ll need you with me. We’re going down the other corridor in this wing and checking room-by-room for vampires and victims. Agreed?”

The others made affirmative sounds and the group split up. Nick pushed through the doors behind him and a few minutes later they heard heavy objects being shoved against the other side of the doors. Nobody was getting in to harm them from that end. Glinda signaled Castiel to begin reviving the people. She and Jody would console them – Claire, too, unless she wanted to fight instead. Claire decided she wanted to stick close to Jody this time.

At Claire’s suggestion the women opened the head end of the iron lungs first and gave the victims towels and wet cloths. That way they could make themselves more presentable in private. Later they could climb out on their own or wait for help opening up the lower end of the casing. Castiel found plenty of towels in the closet, so they went to work. The plan worked well.

Eddie followed Tik-tok outdoors. Tik-tok took the back side of the building, which would be the shortest route to the other end. Eddie agreed to go the other way, circle the building and then check between the vehicles parked in front.

Captain Fyter barreled into the first room along the corridor and dragged out furniture to block the entrance door at the end of the wing. He suggested that he break down the door to each room and the brothers could then check for people and vampires and deal with them. Sam and Dean nodded; they had begun to feel useless. Now they were feeling like a vital part of the team.

The blitz down the corridor went very well. Captain Fyter shouldered each door, punching it into the room and bounced across the hall to the opposite door to do the same. He did this untiringly all the way to the other end of the hall, then crashed through the locked door at the end to check on Nick.

Dean and Sam took their time so as to not miss anyone. The plan was to splash holy water into any room with a person and kill those who reeled back in agony from the burn. Two of the rooms had a human each and they directed the them towards the TB ward for help. In one of the rooms at the far end, five vampires were hiding together. Even when burned with holy water, five of them in such a small room would be hard for them to fight, so they closed the door and blocked it instead. That would hold them until Nick came back to help. In one room Sam saw Eddie dash by outside, brushing his hand against the window panes, which immediately turned to solid iron.

One last room; it’s two occupants charged the brothers. They could handle two vampires. Sam dispatched one quickly, slashing his sword across its throat. Dean slipped behind the other one and grabbed hold of its shirt and belt to keep it leaning back enough to be off balance. Once done with the first vampire, Sam easily spun around and slashed the throat of the other. With that, the corridor was secured.

Dean and Sam entered the front lobby. Eight headless vampire corpses lay on the floor. Nick and the Captain were pulling the iron lungs out of their ports to the dining room and slamming the port panels shut to prevent any escapes from the dining room. There was a commotion on the other end of the wall and they heard the slamming shut of the dining room’s sliding doors. They could also heard screams from the left wing where Tik-Tok was advancing from the other end.

Invading the dining room would wait. The rescuers looked over the lobby and hall for survivors. Other than the motionless heads at one end, the contents of the iron lungs were no longer recognizable as human. Just mangled flesh and splattered gore. There were no survivors among the carnage.

“Go out to the other end and help Tik-Tok,” ordered Captain Fyter. The brothers dutifully charged out the front door and raced to the end of the complex’s left wing. They entered through the door there and saw Tik-Tok about half way down the corridor. Blood spattered on the floor and walls suggested he had found a few vampires on the way. They drew their swords and headed down the hall to join the copper man. They could see the Captain waiting at the other end, standing outside the dining room.

The victims were free from the iron lungs. Glinda paused to ponder the situation.

“Jody,” she asked, “Isn’t it unusual for so many people to be unable to speak English. I recognized Spanish, maybe a Slavic tongue and some east Asian languages. Some said they were brought by truck.”

“I noticed as I tried to calm them, I wasn’t relieving all of their anxieties,” added Castiel. “There is something more than just being kidnaped and brought to a vampire nest.”

Jody agreed. “This isn’t normal. Not even vampire normal. I think someone is redirecting people here who are being smuggled into the country for other purposes, instead of them being captured one-by-one at random. Someone with big money and no conscience has to be involved.”


	21. Chapter 21

The gathering in the dining room began with an initiation. Compatriots from two other locations were celebrating onscreen from the monitors through online connections. The prey had been rolled in inside the iron lungs, which lined the walls, and guests were feasting on their living bodies.

The initiated was a frightened twelve-year-old boy. There was already evidence of bite marks on his neck, the first step had been taken for his transformation. He was lifted up to stand on a chair among the revelers.

“This has been a long time coming,” announced one of the celebrants. “We just need to finish before Beryx and Anica get back.” The others chuckled. “Fae, step back from your meal. I think that’s the last one still living.”

The boy was carried to the body. “Go on boy. Take a drink. Become a man. Be like the rest of us.”

The boy resisted. The man insisted and again the boy resisted.

“Come on, Vlad. Drink!” Blood was splashed into his face. Finally he was pushed face-first into the barely-living body.

“Success!” said the host. Vlad squirmed loose, spitting blood and his face smeared with the gore, and ran for the kitchen. But he couldn’t get through the door.

“Hey! Who blocked the door! What is that?” A couple of vampires went to check.

At about that time the iron lungs were being pulled out of the room and the panels above them dropped down. Alarmed members ran for the sliding doors and pulled them shut. The bar was dropped across them and everyone sat quietly, waiting for who knows what. A few hurried to wash away evidence at the wash basins, but nothing was going to disguise the bloody mess left where the iron lungs had been sitting. The mops were in the kitchen, which was now inaccessible.

They recognized screams from other vampires in the lobby and from the hall in the left wing. Someone on the outside tried the door handles. Then all was quiet but for some mumbling now and then and the sobbing of the child curled in the corner by the kitchen door. Unknown people were at the doors. They waited, sitting quietly at the table, and listening for anything that would forewarn them what was going to happen next.

Then an axe crashed through one of the sliding doors and another axe crashed through the other. Yet another slashed down the length of the kitchen door in back and the young boy ran screaming to join the others in the middle of the room. A man made of copper strolled in behind him.

Hands of both flesh and metal pulled back the front door panels and soon the faces of Dean, Nick and Captain Fyter peered in through the opening. Eddie stepped in and put his hand on the closest vampire, whose body instantly turned into salt. Eddie pushed the salt form and it crumbled. The vampires sat frozen for a while as the invaders finished ripping apart the sliding doors.

Finally. one vampire stood up, brandishing a pistol, and took a shot that struck Eddie in the head. A second did the same and shot Eddie in the chest. In the same instant Captain Fyter got to the first shooter and sliced off his head. Two vampires jumped from their seats and onto the wall behind them. They clung to the wall just under the ceiling near the kitchen.

Eddie wiped a butter smudge off of his shirt and a blob of it off of his forehead. Of course he hadn’t been harmed. He slammed his hand on the table top, turning the table top and every vampire hand or sleeve or arm that was in contact with it into iron. Nobody at the table was going anywhere.

One of the perched vampires leaped across the room and through the curtains on the other side. He dropped to the floor where Captain Fyter dispatched him, too. The captain pulled the curtains aside to reveal the windows that Eddie had earlier turned into iron. He grabbed the two severed heads and waved them as he approached the two monitors. The viewers on the screens were horrified. Tik-tok pulled out the computer and ripped cords until the monitors went blank. He looked up at the remaining vampire on the wall as he headed back to the front of the room.

The vampire pointed at Eddie from his perch. “Wer sind Sie? Ich traf jemanden wie Sie in den Karpaten.”

Eddie understood him. He heard the vampire’s comment in English and didn’t recognize the language actually being spoken.

The vampire continued, “Er wurde mit den Dämonenjägern-Gesellschaft in Wien verbunden. Kennen Sie ihn? Das spielt keine Rolle. Schau mich an. Toten Sie die Anderen.”

Eddie suddenly turned towards Captain Fyter and grabbed the blade of his sword. The sword immediately turned into salt. Fyter jerked the blade handle to the side before the leading edge of the salt could reach his hand and the salt blade crumbled. The Captain had no defense from Eddie’s touch but to stay back from him.

From the corner of the room and electric bolt shocked Eddie back to his senses. It came from Glinda’s hand. She sent a second bolt at the vampire, stunning him as well, causing him to slip down the wall.

“Ich kann Deutsch.,” Glinda told the vampire. “Don’t anyone look into his eyes! He can muddle your thinking. Are you okay, Eddie?”

The vampire recovered from the shock and scurried along the wall. Dean took a shot with the Colt and the vampire dodged the bullet. He swooped lower and Tik-tok slashed his axe down the vampire’s side. It wasn’t deep enough to stop him. The vampire leaped onto Sam, Dean and Castiel at the doorway and knocked them over, then jumped out of the room into the lobby.

Soon Jody’s body came flying into the room knocking the boys down again. Before for all could gather themselves and chase after him, the vampire had grabbed Claire and carried her out the front door of the lobby and into the parking lot.

Dean and Sam were first to get out the door and ran into the lot, looking carefully between each of the cars. The three metal men were right behind them.

“They did not go out there,” Captain Fyter called out to the boys. He glanced around. “If they had I would have seen their heat trail. They had to have gone...up!”

The Captain turned around and looked up. “Their heat trail goes over the roof. Nick! Throw me up there.”

Nick flung Captain Fyter up onto the roof. Tik-tok motioned for Nick to do the same with him and Nick did. The two men dashed up the roof and over the peak.

On the other side Fyter and Tik-tok scurried down the other side, and leaped off the roof to the ground. Captain Fyter glanced around and re-located the heat trail. He ran into the woods with Tik-tok right behind him. The vampire could see in the dark, but so could the Captain, and only the vampire would eventually tire out.

“Come on, guys,” Nick told the others still by the front entrance. “We have work to finish.”

Inside, Nick pried Dean’s axe from one door panel and handed it to him. He pulled his own axe out of another panel. Sam displayed his knife and the three entered the dining room.

Whack! Nick sliced off a vampire’s head. Whack! Another one. After the third decapitation he paused and looked at the Winchesters. “You two helping?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean quipped. “It just doesn’t seem fair with all of them sealed to the table.”

“Shall I cut a couple loose so you boys can chase them around the room?”

“No! I’m good.” Dean lifted his axe.

Sam was distracted by something else. “Guys? Aren’t they awfully passive for people about to die?”

“They still die.” Nick began hacking again and the brothers followed suit. The job was quickly finished.

Nick Chopper looked over the bodies with a grunt of satisfaction. “Sam could you find Eddie and tell him the dining room is ready for a cleansing? He might be going around cleaning up all the dead bodies. Dean and I have one more task.”

Sam nodded and left to find Eddie. Dean followed Nick down the middle hall and out the back door. They stood outside looking at the woods in front of them.

“Okay,” Nick said shortly, then pointed to the right. “They entered the woods over there.” A pause. “I hear them now in the distance in front of us.” A pause. “Not moving away from us. Gaging from the distance the boys are behind the vampire and how noisy they are in the chase, I’d say they are steering him in a circle and he’ll soon be right back here. Let’s wait and see.”

In the forest, the vampire was still running at peak speed with a re-hypnotized Claire flung over his shoulder. But the extra weight began to slow him down. With the metal men at his heals, having a captive wasn’t going to benefit him anymore. So, he dropped her to the ground and picked up speed.

The vampire’s sight was good but the running was taking its toll on his stamina. He couldn’t see the metal men behind him. He heard them – they weren’t being particularly quiet – but he couldn’t pinpoint where they were. It sounded like they coming from two directions behind him. He turned to the left and then to the right and tried to keep up the pace. Finally he spied the edge of the woods and a structure beyond it. He was going to make it into the neighborhood and the men in pursuit didn’t sound at all close to him.

A few more yards, then a couple of feet and the vampire was in the open.

Nick was standing there with his axe over his shoulder. And Dean was beside him, pointing his Colt at the vampire. A shot between the eyes took out the last vampire.


	22. Chapter 22

Captain Fyter emerged from the woods first. Minutes later Tik-tok came out, carrying Claire. Castiel could easily revive her. And Eddie could take care of the vampire body. 

In fact, they met Eddie at the door, dragging a large mass of water out into the outdoors. A mass that had a moment before been the dead bodies and iron lungs in the front lobby. Eddie headed into the right corridor. 

First, the two bodies on the floor.

“That reminds me.” Sam hurried to catch up with Eddie. “There are five more locked in this room.”

But, not any more. The room was empty. Those five vampires had worked the door open and escaped during all of the commotion. 

So, next would be the dining room. Sam followed Eddie into the room. Glinda was right behind them.

“Gruesome,” she exclaimed, looking at the headless bodies sitting at the long table. “Eddie, would you wipe out everything in here? I will need the room. We need to feed everyone in the TB ward and send them home. I can do it all from in here. Please?”

Behind her, Tik-tok waived the computer he had recovered. “Glinda, who can find out where their celebration was transmitted? Do we need anything besides this? I pulled out everything between the wall and the monitors.”

Glinda looked towards Sam, who guessed that if someone could do it, Tik-tok had gathered enough of the system to do it with. He just wasn’t going to be the person to do it.

“You know,” Sam added. “We need to do something about the cars out front. Do we have time to search all of them?”

“I’ll move them with my belt after this room is linked to my palace in Oz. As to where to move them...”

“How about my barn in Kansas? Lots of space and it will be near Castiel and the Winchesters.”

“Decided,” said Glinda. “I’ll leave this to you to clean up...Oh, by the way. Do you know there is a child under the table?” She left for the TB ward.

Sure enough, sobbing could be heard from under the table. Eddie crouched down to see a young boy in between the legs in there. He motioned for the child to come out.

Sam leaned over to talk to the boy. “It’s okay. Nobody can hurt you now. Were you here all this time?”

The boy stood up and nodded. At this point Sam noticed the bite marks on his neck. “Eddie, look at the bite marks. He was just bitten recently. What’s you name?”

“Vlidimir.”

“Have you...have you drunk any blood yet?”

The boy began to break down again. “They made me. I didn’t want to. They bit me and made me drink. Where’s pappa? Where’s mama?”

“Um, are there here?” Eddie looked around the room. “What are their names?” As if knowing their names would make any difference.

“Noooo! They closed me in one of the rooms so no one would hurt me and they came and got me and Mama and Papa weren’t here!”

“Sam, you talk to him while I clean out the dining room,” said Eddie.

“Yeah,” Sam then addressed the boy. “Uh, Vladimir, take me to where to your room first. Did your parents have their own apartment here?”

Eddie put his hands on the table and turned it and everything touching it into water. Then he caused the water to wash back and forth across the room. Everything in the water also turned to water, including the heads, wall mounts and even the monitors above. The water then wrapped around Eddie and he led it into the hall and out the front door into the parking lot.

By the time he returned, the dining hall had already been transferred into a patio environment with small tables with chairs and half of a fountain to the left with a sign reading, “Do Not Drink” beside it. In each corner of the room, a cauldron spewed a pleasantly scented smoke. Middle-aged women in red skirts and white aprons entered through the wall at the far left side. They carried red pails and placed them on the tables.

Eddie next followed Sam and Vladimir down the left hall. Once the boy affirmed his parents were not among the bodies, Eddie cleansed the halls just as he had the dining room.

Inside the apartment of Vladimir’s parents, the boy sat as Sam looked around. “Beryx. Anica. Vlad. Were these you parents?” Same held up the photograph he was reading. The boy nodded.

“Maybe they got away,” Sam suggested. It was possible they were among the five vampires that escaped. He hadn’t gotten a good look at them. Thankfully, the couple in the picture did not resemble the two they had killed in the same corridor. He would check with Dean. Dean had a sharper memory.

The three of them returned to the dining room to see the former captives swarming into the room. Some were already seated and they pulled off the green lids decorated like large leaves – or were they real leaves? -- off of their red pails to get to the wrapped sandwiches and fresh fruit inside. The servers poured water into their glasses.

Glinda truly reigned in this room. Now a part of Oz, this room allowed her belt’s magic to work and she put it on. A few at a time the captives gathered around her to tell their stories of capture. She asked more questions and conferred with Jody and Claire. Every now and then she called for Castiel, who placed his hand on someone’s forehead, after which she faced them and mumbled a few words and they disappeared.

Sam, Vladimir, and Eddie observed the activities from their vantage along the wall by the fountain. When Castiel came close enough, Sam motioned him to join them.

“Uh, Cas, “Sam said. “What are you and Glinda doing? Why isn’t anyone getting upset about people disappearing?”

Castiel esplained. “Glinda talked with each of the people in the ward and they seemed very responsive. We decided that first we need to get them in here under the jurisdiction of Oz. Here Glinda’s servants could feed them. Then Glinda talk would with each of them again to decided what would help them the most. Jody helped decide where best to send them. Then I am to remove any bad memory associated with their capture and their time here, and Glinda will use her belt to transport them to the place Jody suggests.”

“A few cannot be helped that way,” he continued. “That is why the servant is standing by the fountain with a tray of glasses. The fountain behind her is Oz’s Fountain of Oblivion. Anyone who drinks of the fountain forgets everything they have ever experienced. All we can do is have them drink the water and appoint a guardian in Oz to watch over them. Some of their worst criminals were condemned to drinking its water. They always leave with a pleasant disposition and an eagerness to learn. They learn from watching their guardians. So far, they all have become kind and responsible citizens of Oz.”

“Oh, yeah!” piped in Eddie. “Sam, do you remember when Wogglebug mentioned Dorothy Gale and Dorothy Baum? Well, their tussle ended with Miss Baum being dunked in this fountain. She’s living with a family in the country, perfectly happy to do farm chores and visit with travelers passing by.”

“Gotta go!” said Castiel. “Glinda’s giving me the finger.”

“That’s not her middle finger. You don’t say that about the other fingers,” Sam hastily inserted. “That’s her index finger.”

“Right! Glinda is giving me the index. Gotta go!” And Castiel left to heal the memories of another human. The threesome resumed holding up the wall and watching Glinda, Jody and Castiel work their magic.

At some time after that, two skinny black bristle-covered arms ending in huge white inflated mittens reached out through the wall behind Eddie. The mittens slapped down hard on Eddie’s shoulders and roughly pulled him backwards through the wall.

Sam noticed something had just happened and looked around. He hadn’t see Eddie leave. He was not across the room where Dean was chatting with the metal men.

“Vladimir! Where’s Eddie?” he asked the boy.

Vladimir looked up at Sam wide-eyed and said, “I think Mickey Mouse just kidnaped him!”


	23. Chapter 23

Eddie pulled down from the gloves on his shoulders and spun around. “Oh! Hiya, Wogglebug!”

Professor Wogglebug grinned as he pulled off the oversized gloves.

“Well,” he said, inspecting the gloves. “We now know for sure you can’t accidentally turn someone to salt by being startled.”

“You experimenting? What’s with the balloon gloves?”

“They were to protect me if I had been wrong. See?” Wogglebug showed him the undamaged palms of the gloves. “They are layered in material and air. I noticed you don’t seem to be able to change air into anything, at least not with any speed. So, if you began changing what was touching you into salt or butter or mayonnaise – whatever – the cloth would change but the air would block the change going any deeper. I would have time to let go and step away.”

“That’s brilliant,” said Eddie. “Have you been watching this all this time.?”

“Well, what I hadn’t been reading earlier in the Book of Records. Witnessing is much more satisfying. One thing I know that the others don’t is that you were in the dining room before you returned with Sam.”

Wogglebug held out a bag. “You collected the souls from every vampire seated around the table. Sam noticed they seemed to be in a dull frame of mind. That’s because their vampire souls were already gone. And you kept them. What do you plan to do with vampire souls? They no longer have bodies to return to now, even if you could separate the human part from the animal part. Without a body they will eventually have to die.”

“I don’t know,” said Eddie. “I though I had to do something. But, after checking them over there’s nothing I can do.”

“How about I take them?” said Wogglebug. “Oz used to have vampires long before Oz became a magical land. Glinda knows. She was alive then. She would want to free your souls as much as you do. My students and I could study them. I’ll have them research old town records. We know they have two souls and I don’t know how we know that. If we can find the source of that fact, it might tell us how the two souls bind and how to unbind them.” Again, Wogglebug held out the bag.

Eddie shrugged his shoulders, then one-by-one an orb emerged from the palm of his hand and he placed it gently into the bag. At least twenty of them. Actually, it was a relief not to be hosting them in his own body. He knew there was nothing he personally could do for them. Maybe Wogglebug could.

Eddie waved and walked back through the wall to join Sam and Vladimir.

Back on the other side, Eddie saw that all of the vampire victims were gone except for three sitting by the fountain. They had to be the mind-wiped ones who were start a new life in Oz.

Dean and Tik-tok were organizing the tables in a circle at the same time servants gathered the pails and napkins to take back through the wall.

“We’re having a meeting,” Dean explained to Sam. “We need to know what to do with the cars out front, and the vampire belongings in the apartments and the iron lungs and the information on the computer.”

“Hey, Eddie! Dean continued. “Guess what! That pill does more than make me remember what happened in the gnome fight. I remember you standing in the middle of the pool when I was a kid. And walking with you in the lake.”

“And I remember watching from inside you, while you rummaged around in my guts,” added Sam. “I guess I won’t need to check my pencil collection anymore.”

Glinda came gliding through the wall with Jody and Claire at either side of her. She was explaining to them how Wogglebug’s pills would prevent them from forgetting their visit into the Oz zone. A servant with a full tray circled around them and to the table where Eddie and Sam had sit down with Vladimir hunched down between them. After leaving a pill and water for Vlad to take and juice and snacks for the others, she introduced herself to the threesome by the fountain and led them out of the room to meet their new guardians. They cheerfully followed her through the wall.

Glinda swept around Dean and stood behind one of the tables. She held out her arms. “So, let’s get started.” Rather than sitting down, she leaned over the back of her chair and looked over the group taking their places. Castiel and Captain Fyter joined them and all participants were present.

First was a discussion of the vampire that had kidnaped Claire. According to Glinda he spoke German, although others like Vlad and his parents Beryx and Anica were Romanian. The vampire referred to the Carpathians and a group formed in Vienna similar to the Men of Letters groups. Sam found an online reference about Austrian Empress Maria Theresa sending her personal physician Gerard van Swieten into the Carpathians to dispute the claims of Austro-Hungarian citizens there who claimed the existence of vampirism. “No such condition,” he announced and that settled that; except that the secret demon hunters’ society was organized soon after. The vampire also let slip that someone much like Eddie was associated with this group. There may be another reincarnated ‘apostle of the Lord’ in the world.

As for Beryx and Anica, the paperwork showed that they were the ones who ran the sanitarium and were among the five escapees. They would be searching for their son Vladimir.

Second, record books in the building were collected and put in Jody’s sheriff’s car and they would try to track down the apparant human smuggling; Glinda would send the car with Jody and Claire inside it to the Mills home. The rest of the cars were to go, ‘poof!,’ to the fallow field behind Eddie’s barn near the bunker where the Winchesters would review the license plates and whatever they could find in the glove compartments.

Last decision was what is to be done with Vladimir, now a full-fledged vampire. Sam and Eddie both insisted on Vlad’s safety because he had not yet actually harmed a human for to be killed for. Dean was doubtful that Vlad could resist a kill but the others fell in line behind Sam and Eddie’s reasoning.

So, who was to take charge of Vladimir? Glinda said, Not in Oz. Jody wasn’t having him around her girls or home town. Sam reluctantly admitted Vlad wouldn’t fare well with Dean. That left Eddie. So Glinda sent him and Vladimir to his house in Indiana and sent Dean, Sam and Castiel to behind Eddie’s barn in Kansas. Anna was sitting on the porch when the sheriff’s car suddenly appeared at the curb out front. And with a wave of Glinda’s hand the patio and fountain disappeared from the sanitarium dining room.

The local authorities could deal with what was left.

At home Eddie took Vladimir into the guest rooms in the barn and they carried one of the beds into the house and into what was now Vladimir’s room. A bag there held what of Vlad’s clothing that were found back at the sanitarium. And a one-eyed teddybear. Eddie was torn between fixing human food or turning warm water into generic blood. He opted for sausages, green beans and potatoes, for fear starting right off with blood would somehow make Vlad more addicted to blood than he was.

Vladimir was left in his room for the night and Eddie settled down to meditate in a comfy chair in the living room with his recorder on. He hoped Timothy could help. And here was Timothy’s message when Eddie checked it:

“We have reviewed the destiny of Vladimir, son of Beryx and Anica, and have found that, as a child of vampires, he will be led by fate to become a slayer of vampires as an adult. This will occur in spite of his conversion to vampirism. We have found no evidence of a reversal of this condition. Though we have no suggestions for you, Edward Timms, we must express our pride in your decision to guide this child and we recognize your ability to make mature and compassionate decisions. We have confidence in you. Do not forget that you are not alone in your task. Do make use of your friends.”


	24. Chapter 24

The next morning Eddie woke up with the sensation that someone was in his room. It wasn’t Castiel. The angel has in the past spoken with Timothy as Eddie slept and when finished always waited nearby to inform Eddie of the visit. (Eddie would know anyway when he played the recording, but the gesture was appreciated.)

No, this entity was very close. Eddie could feel moisture near his face and breathing. It was expected, but he was disappointed it was happening this soon. He felt slight pressure against his neck.

“Aaaah! Pffft! Pffft!” A shocked Vladimir fell back, and tried to spit out the bitter taste in his mouth. “Pffft!”

Eddie sat up in his bed, with a passive expression on his face. He was in no danger. But he did have to gather his wits about him to decide what to do next.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Vladimir scooted back on the bedroom floor to the wall. He held his hands over his mouth, trying to rub away the bitter taste. “I didn’t mean to bite! I’m sorrrry!”

“Come on, Vladimir,” Eddie said quietly. “Let’s get that taste out of your mouth.” He stood up and walked out of the bedroom and Vladimir followed with apprehension.

In the kitchen, Eddie turned on the cold water. “Rinse out your mouth. Whatever touched my neck turned into alum. Let me look at your fangs when you are through.”

Soon Vladimir turned up his face towards Eddie’s and showed his fangs. Eddie wipe alum powder from Vladimir’s face and then rubbed his fingers over the fangs. He dissolved them down to the gums and turned the base of the fangs into fake flesh.

“Okay, your fangs are gone now. The gums will heal over. That won’t change your desire for human blood, so let’s work out a way to satisfy your hunger without the need to bite. I have someone coming. Right now, let’s have breakfast.”

After breakfast, they heard a vehicle approaching the house. Vladimir followed Eddie out to greet the blood bank van.

“Hiya, Martha!” Eddie called out. “How many batches are there today?” He pulled open the back door and climbed in. Vladimir watched Eddie convert saline into blood to match the coding on the containers. Martha would forget if she actually saw Eddie doing this, but no problem for Vladimir since he took Wogglebug’s pill.

Martha hopped out of the driver’s seat as Eddie closed up in back. “Here’s the incubator you asked for.” She handed an opened box to Eddie.

“Nice! Thanks, Martha!” said Eddie. “See you in about a month?”

The van left and Eddie took the incubator into the house. “This is to keep warm the fake blood I’ll be making for you.” He plugged it in and then sorted through the containers that came with it.

“My blood will keep longer than natural blood. I’ll set the incubator to higher than human blood temperature and make variations that will hopefully taste better than the real thing. I’m guessing, but maybe it will be different enough to make human blood too boring to tempt you.”

He filled three of the containers at the sink and tucked his finger into each one, turning the contents red. Then he marked stickers and placed them on the containers.

“This one is straight fake blood. Try some of it.” Eddie handed the drink to Vladimir, who sipped some of it and nodded his head.

“And this one is a mix with barbeque sauce. And this other one is a mix with red potatoes, onions and celery puree. Try a bit of each,” he added.

Vladimir’s eyes popped wide with a taste of the first pseudo blood pack. He smiled with the second.

“I like the last one best. I’ll need to try the second one again. It might be okay.”

Eddie put the three containers into the incubator.

“Good enough. This should cover you for a week,” Eddie said. “Tell me what else sounds good. In fact, here’s the blender. Make some mixes of your own. I’m just assuming that anything that goes well with steak might be a good flavoring for blood. Only you know for sure what you will like better than plain blood.”

“Okay, then.” Eddie said as he wiped the counter. “Next task, finding things for you to do. Maybe Glinda can send someone to visit from Oz. Beau would be fun and a good role model; Nick, too. Eventually, maybe you can come with me when I perform my miracles. It might be fun to do some sightseeing in between tasks.”

“I can watch him sometimes.”

Eddie and Vladimir turned to see Castiel, who stopped at the house to see if all was well before heading back to his beehives.

“Could you show Vladimir your honey business?” Eddie jumped at the chance to have Vladimir learn useful pastimes. Castiel would have the patience to work with an impulsive pre-teen. “Vladimir, let’s go check out Castiel’s honey farm!”

Soon, the three had donned netted hats and Castiel was pulling honey combs out of the bee boxes to show Vladimir. He showed him the containers of harvested honey and explained how different blooms produced different varieties of honey.

“Castiel, how about taking him into the meadow and showing him? I wanted to talk to Glinda today. I’ll do that and be back in maybe half an hour,” Eddie suggested hopefully.

Castiel was fine with that. He and Vladimir pulled off their protective gear and marched into the meadow below. Eddie hadn’t been sure if Castiel would want a youngster hanging around or not. He seemed to prefer solitary activities except for the hunts with the Winchesters. But, he would be a good role model if Vladimir took an interest.

Next, Glinda. Eddie’s link was a veil covered mirror hanging in the house. He pulled the veil back and waited. Soon a young woman’s smiling face appeared in the mirror. There was always activities in the mirror-lined ballroom in Glinda’s palace. Anyone might respond if someone’s form appeared in one of the mirrors there.

Glinda was not free, but the woman in the mirror was happy to help. She knew that any of the metal men would be happy to pay visits and interact with Vladimir. But, she recommended someone who she thought would be a fantastic and fun friend for Vladimir. Her name was Scraps. The woman, named Jellia, would get back with Eddie.

Eddie signed off – he covered the mirror – and left the house to check on Castiel and Vladimir. But Castiel was rushing Vladimir to the house and met him halfway to the barn.

A bit alarmed, Castiel called out, “The boy’s skin is burning! I healed him once in the meadow, but he’s getting burns again!”

The skin on Vladimir’s face and exposed arms were a painful-looking red, peeling and producing pus-filled boils. In the house, Castiel healed him again. This time he stayed healed.

Castiel and Eddie realized then that being a Romanian vampire had a serious drawback. Vladimir was seriously allergic to sunlight. Being exposed directly to the sun might actually kill him.

In Sioux Falls, a few days after the ‘Great Vampire Hunt,’ and Claire Novak was walking home. On the front walk, she thought she saw a woman at the side of the house. She walked there and thought she saw a glimpse of a man at the back corner of the house. She walked around the corner and came face-to-face with Beryx and Anica.

Claire felt the initial pull of Beryx’s gray eyes, but noticed that he was not trying to mesmerize her.

“I do not intend to harm you,” said Beryx. We want to know... Where is our son? What happened to him at our home?”

Claire was not certain what she should share, but, considering what the vampire couple could do her, she chose the truth. “Uh, well, they turned him into a vampire at the gathering.”

Anica’s head drooped and she turned to Beryx. He wrapped his arm around her. “We tried so hard to keep that from happening. Where is he now?”

“He’s staying at one of our houses. At Eddie’s in Indiana. I don’t know where exactly that is. And I don’t know his last name. But Vladimir can’t hurt Eddie, and Eddie would never hurt Vladimir.”

Beryx and Anica were suddenly gone.

Relieved, Claire hurried in through the back door calling for Jody. She found her in the laundry room.

“Jody!” Claire declared. “You won’t believe who I met outside; the couple that captured me at the sanitarium. I was scared to death! They just wanted to know what happened to their son.”

“Did you tell them?” Jody asked.

“I told them he was a vampire now and that he was with Eddie, but I didn’t know Eddie who or where. They let me go.”

“Okay. You did right.” Jody leaned back against the dryer. “Other things have been happening. I can’t find the documents we brought home from the sanitarium. They’ve simply vanished. And I got a call from Sam. Some of the cars at the barn are missing, too. It looks like the escaped vampires and maybe others are collecting up their belongings. If they know where we are and where the cars were transported, they’re sure to find Eddie’s place, too. I’ll need to warn him.”


	25. Chapter 25

Eddie and Vladimir were expecting a visitor from Oz and were walking back to the barn. Jellia had followed through on her promise and someone named Scraps was on her way. They entered the barn and pulled up one of the doors. Up the steps flew an excited mass of crazy-quilted material and a face with large button eyes and a yarn top-knot. “Waaaahoooeeee!”

Scraps was a product of Doctor Pipt’s Powder of Life. An Oz woman who hated housework built a servant out of scraps of quilting material with a quilted head, legs, arms and skirt, thick cotton gardening gloves for hands and white flat buttons for eyes. A scattering of the doctor’s powder brought the cotton body to life. To the woman’s dismay, though, Scraps had no interest in housework. True to the pattern in her material, she was too carefree and scatterbrained to care for tedious work.

Scraps eventually found her way to the palace in the Emerald City where her cheerfulness and kindness was well received by Queen Ozma. It happened that for a few days Ozma was visiting at Glinda’s palace with her head housekeeper Jellia Jamb and the ever-lively Scraps. And Jellia thought it good to share Scraps with Eddie and Vladimir.

“Well, okay,” said Eddie to Scraps. “I’m Eddie and this is Vladimir. Is it okay to just leave you and Vladimir here in the barn while I run a couple errands? There’s just one thing you need to know about Vladimir. He can’t spend time in the sunshine without getting seriously burned, so don’t let him go outside the barn while I’m gone.

“Right! Take Vladimir outside to play...just kidding! He will stay unburned, but I can’t say we won’t be messy.”

“I can live with that,” said Eddie and he pulled up the opposite door in the floor and headed down the steps.

As soon as the door shut, Scraps dashed madly outdoors and spun around, skipped a bit and made flapping gestures. “It’s gorgeous out here, Vladie! I want to explore. Do you want to come along?”

Vladimir stepped back in horror. “Scraps, I can’t go out there! Didn’t you hear Eddie? Sunlight can kill me!”

“I know that,” said Scraps. “But, do you want to go exploring with me?”

“Uh, yeah?

“Okay, Vladie, we will. First, we need to dress for the occasion. Come on!” Scraps pulled up the door Eddie had just opened and gone through. Where ever Eddie had gone, they were going somewhere else. She grabbed Vladimir by the hand and led him down the steps.

Eddie came up the stairs in his barn near the Winchesters’ bunker. He joined Dean Winchester who was browsing through the cars behind the barn.

“So, how many of the cars were taken?” Eddie asked Dean.

Dean scratched his head. “Sam says he saw three of them being driven away. We sent the license plate numbers for these cars to Jody to track and she says all of them are stolen and their owners are dead or missing. Apparently, the vampires attacked and killed people and took their cars to drive to the sanitarium. Everything in the cars confirm their owners and tell nothing about where the vampires came from. Sam is looking online for suspicious activities where the car owners lived and hasn’t found anything. I wonder if we should be watching the sanitarium.”

“If the owners are sophisticated enough to have smart phones and televised internet access,” replied Eddie, “they surely e-mailed everyone who might go there and canceled any future deliveries. It would be worth it to check St. Louis police reports. Does anyone know if the authorities are even aware the place is vacant?”

“Jody probably checked, but I can ask,” said Dean. “I suppose we should get rid of these cars before someone snoops around and the police discover you have abandoned cars on your farm.”

Eddie placed his hand on each vehicle, which car turned to water and collapsed into the ground, leaving a large muddy puddle in the field. “Done!”

Scraps and Vladimir reached the end of the tunnel, opened the vertical door and emerged from one of the mirrors in Glinda’s ballroom. In the room, Glinda and Queen Ozma were seated in their royal gowns chatting. Jellia was with them. The three watched Scraps lead the boy across the room and into the hall.

Scraps popped her head back into the room to grab an elaborately decorated drawstring bag.. “I’m taking him to the fabric room, Jellia!” And she was gone again. Jellia hopped up and followed her.

They went down a hall and up a spiral staircase to another hall and into one of the side rooms. Inside, Vladimir looked around in awe at mountains of fabric and stacks of drawers of notions. He watched as Scraps rummaged through her drawstring bag.

“What are you making, Scraps?” asked Jellia.

Scraps pulled out of the bag two bundles of slender metal blades lined with notches and pulled both of them over the fat fingers of her clumsy cloth hands. She held them up to show Vladimir and made the blades twitch across each other like small scissors. He stared wide-eyed at the pointy delicate contraptions.

She turned to Jellia and explained. Vladie burns in the sun. We need something that will protect him so we can go outside. A hat! Yes, a wide-brim hat and a cloak!”

“Well, here is felt for a hat. What color?” asked Jellia. She and Scraps both faced Vladimir.

“Uh, blue?”

“Blue it is. Here Scraps,” said Jellia. “I’ll find some blue thread.”

“Red for me,” said Scraps. She took the blue felt and with her metal fingers cut a length of it with a perfect half-oval cut out of one end and perfect oval hole cut in the middle. Then she formed the cap, used her fingers like needles to pull the thread back and forth through the felt, sewing it shut. Next, in the same way she stitched the cap to the oval and produce a wide-brimmed hat with a flap that would droop down behind Vladimir’s neck and over his ears. She stitched netting across the front brim and set the project aside.

“Put it on, Vladie!” Scraps started on a red hat for herself, a duplicate of the blue one. Finally she put it on and bounced over to a rack of silk flowers. She tucked a huge pink and white posy in her hat, then looked back at Vladimir.

Vladimir was okay with the big hat but cringed at the thought of a big flower in its brim.

Scraps understood and turned her attention towards other decorations.

“Ah!” she finally exclaimed. “How about this?” She dance across the room to Vladimir with a large peacock feather and tucked it into his hat. “We can check it out in the mirrors on the way back.”

Jellia came up behind Vladimir and held up a skein of white cloth. “This color or blue?”

“Let’s go with that,” decided Scraps. “We will try it out and, if he likes it, I’ll add blue trim later.

Scraps took the cloth and, without even measuring Vladimir for size, cut a perfectly squared end off of it. She stitched on wrist cuffs and flipped the material around to gather the other end and run a cord through it. Finished in minutes, she had sewn a cloak that would wrap around Vladimir to shield him when he pulled his arms together. She motioned for Vladimir to come try it on.

He pulled on the cloak and Scraps pulled the drawstring which caused the wide collar to stand up. Then she snapped the cuffs around Vladimir’s wrists.

“Okay, walk around, Vladie.”

Vladimir did walk and, after feeling the cape begin to flap, he ran. The cape glided along behind him.

“Good! Let’s show Ozma and Glinda.” Scraps pulled off her specialized fingers and put them back in her draw-string bag.

The three returned to the ballroom where Scraps and Vladimir preened in front of the mirrors and posed for Ozma and Glinda, much to their delight.

Having royal approval, Scraps decided it was time to hurry back. She crashed into one of the mirror and sat back on the floor, dazed.

“You can’t go back through the same mirror you arrived through,” Jellia reminded her.

So, Scraps and Vladimir checked the other mirrors to find one with a reflection that hinted of the interior of a barn and pushed through it. Soon, they were through the tunnel and out of the barn, and running enthusiastically through the fields and the woods.

Eddie visited with Dean and Sam at the bunker and finally headed back to the barn and took the tunnel back to Indiana. Coming out of the tunnel, he saw Scraps standing alone in the barn and trying unsuccessfully to play innocent. She turned to the right and to the left with her arms behind her back.

“Where’s Vladimir?” Eddie asked.

“Guess,” suggested Scraps.

“Hiya, Eddie!” called out Vladimir.

Eddie looked up towards Vladimir’s voice to see the boy sitting upside down on underside of one of the barn’s rafters. Scraps giggled at Eddie’s shocked look.

“I’m coming down,” called Vladimir and he flipped over to glide over to the wall, scooted across it a few feet and glided again to the ground.

“I’ll catch you,” called Scraps and she held out her arms. Vladimir crashed into her and they both fell laughing into a heap of cloth and boy.

“My papa could do that,” explained Vladimir. “Here’s something else he could do. I can’t mesmerized Scraps. You’ll have to let me do it to you for it to work.” He climbed onto the wall.

“Okay,” Eddie let his guard down and looked into Vladimir’s eyes.

The boy disappeared and seconds later appeared at another location on the wall, then beside Scraps, and finally disappeared altogether. Eddie felt a tap on his should and turned around to see Vladimir there behind him.

“Papa explained it. Now I can do it,” Vladimir said. “I tell you to forget the next few seconds and then I move. You see me at the new location and I tell you to forget again and I move again. Papa did this all the time and I could never tell where he would move to.”

Eddie had to admit that this skill was incredible and that he was amazed that Vladimir perfected it in such a short time.

“My only concern,” said Eddie, “is my fear of being hypnotized into hurting somebody like happened at the sanitarium. That vampire told me to kill everyone. And I could have killed Captain Fyter right then if Glinda hadn’t intervened.”

“Easy!” said Vladimir. “I learned how to keep Papa from mesmerizing me, so I’ll tell you. We can’t reach your mind if it’s already occupied with something else. Just count to yourself when you see my eyes looking at you. It’s just that easy.”

So, Scraps and Vladimir spent the last couple of hours in his room drawing pictures on tablets of paper, waiting for Ozma to call her home to the Emerald City.

Afterwards, Vladimir made his way to the living room, teddy bear under his arm. “She’s gone. They popped her back with the belt.”

“So, would you like to see her again?”

“Sure!” said Vladimir. “She is lots of fun. Besides, she might want to trade her buttons back.” He sat the teddy bear on the table. Scraps’ button eyes were stitched snugly on its face.

“Uh, doesn’t Scraps need those buttons to see with?” Eddie asked.

“Nope. She doesn’t used the buttons to see, she sees in all directions without them. They’re just there because people get weird looking at a face with no eyes. Her mouth doesn’t move either, it just opens to let the sound out from the speaker inside. She had to learn to turn towards people to let them know she is paying attention to them.”

“That’s good she doesn’t use the buttons to see,” said Eddie. “Otherwise, she’d be looking at us right now through the bear’s eyes.”

Vladimir considered that for a moment. “Hmmm. Well, just in case she can, when I talk to him I’m calling him Scrappy.”


	26. Chapter 26

Lee Coats stood on the outside of a log security fence on a North Carolina mountain top. He leaned out over the cliff’s edge to ponder the long distance to the rocks below and leaned back again against the fence and closed his eyes. The park appeared to be empty and he had been here alone for a couple hours, trying to make a decision.

Finally he felt the rail shudder and looked to his right to see a young boy wearing a long-brim ball cap with ear flaps and a white cloak with a high collar that shielded him from jaw to toe. Lee could tell that the boys face not covered by his large sunglasses was coated thick with a cream.

The boy walked deftly along the top rail right up to a few feet of the man and finally sat down on the rail and looked at him. For awhile nothing was said.

“Hiya, Lee.” The boy finally said.

Lee jerked his head abruptly and stared at the boy. The boy knew his name; he did not know this boy.

The boy looked down from his perch and back at Lee. “If you plan to jump, there’s something you should know.”

Lee didn’t respond, but he listened intently.

“Eddie says God thinks you are too important to die here. Eddie says if you jump he will catch you.”

“Who is Eddie?”

“He’s down there, back by the river.” The boy pointed at a man far below and far back from the cliff where, indeed, a river flowed. That would be Eddie, standing barefoot in the water. “I could jump and glide down and be okay, but you’d just plunge straight down and go splat. Except that Eddie will save you.”

Lee was too alarmed to stay there anymore. He pulled himself up to climb over the rail.

But...the rail broke and Lee went plunging down the cliff towards the rocks below.

“Well, I didn’t expect that,” the boy, Vladimir, said to himself. He watched for the promised miracle.

Eddie drew the river from both directions around himself and sent two rushing gushes of river water towards the cliff. Once below the falling man, the water formed a column and rose up to meet him far above the ground.

Lee slipped into the water with a slight ‘splat’ and his body glided downward more and more slowly until he was left struggling for air in the middle of the water. Finally he felt the water itself lowering.

Eventually he felt the ground against his hands and legs. The water left him to flow back around Eddie to rejoin the river. Lee spit out flem and water and some stomach acid.

Vladimir dropped down from his perch and over the cliff. He glided to the cliff’s side and bounded from outcrop to ledge to handhold until he reached the bottom, then strolled over to Eddie’ side.

Lee sat up among the rocks and mud puddles and looked around dazed until the others walked up to him.

“How’re you doing?” Eddie asked him. “That was a long way down. Boy, are you lucky. You don’t even have a scratch.”

Lee looked up. He had changed his mind but fell anyway and survived unscathed. The man couldn’t think of what to say and finally looked up and sputtered out, “My car is up there...”

“I’m sure it’s not coming down, too. I guess you should start back up there. The trail up begins over there,” Eddie replied.

Lee started up the trail. Stretching a bit on the way, trying to find injuries in his body that were not there. It hadn’t occurred to him until he began the drive home that he should probably have talked to the two people at the bottom and learned more.

“Well, Vladimir,” Eddie said, “We have fish to rescue.”

Vladimir looked around them and finally noticed the fish flopping helplessly on the ground. They went to work hauling what they could back to the river.

“You know,” he said to Eddie, “I almost talked him out of jumping before he fell. If the rail hadn’t broken, I might have.”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “You almost changed his destiny, but fate wasn’t going to let you. I’ve tried talking first, too, but reasoning with them has never worked. I have always had to alter the elements to force the change of destiny. Maybe next time you’ll find a way and then you’ll be the miracle worker. I’m proud that you tried.”

A few days later Sam called Dean into the bunker’s library.

“Dean, listen to this,” Sam read him the news article he found. “Local resident Lee Coats survived a plunge of several hundred feet from a cliff top when the railing he was leaning on snapped. He reported that a young boy in a cloak sitting on the railing told him that someone below named Eddie said Coats would survive if he fell to the bottom. Coats did survive the fall with no injuries. He did not know the boy, or Eddie that he referred to.”

Dean looked over Sam’s shoulder and re-read the article.

“Well, well,” he smirked. “It looks like Eddie has a sidekick.”

Sam smiled and nodded.

“Here’s another article I think we should check out. In a Chattanooga, Tennessee hospital they’re getting children from a mountain village with a variety of skin diseases that they can’t seem to treat. The parents are blaming each other for putting hexes on their children.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “Let’s check it out. Hey, if it’s in Tennessee, maybe we could ask Eddie if we can take the tunnels to his Tennessee barn and use his truck there! Can you imagine saving all of that driving time? We could go there, do in whatever is casting the spells, and be back by nighttime!”

“Sure, let’s call Eddie. We haven’t heard how he is doing with Vladimir. And I want to see the boy in his cloak anyway. I wonder what possessed Eddie to dress up Vladimir as Dracula in public.”

Soon the call was made and the Winchesters were climbing up the stairs from the tunnel in Eddie’s Indiana barn. Eddie was there to greet them.

“Hiya, guys! Before you take the next tunnel, there’s something I need to share with you. Or rather somebodies. Vladimir’s parents are with him in the house.” Eddie turned and headed towards his house.

“Byrex and Anica?” Sam asked Dean. They had recently slaughtered the whole vampire household and two of the escaped survivors were paying a friendly visit. Not possible.

“I guess,” Dean looked worried. “They’re vampires. Wouldn’t they just take Vlad and run? Keep your blade handy, Sammy.”

They followed Eddie into his house and to the kitchen in time to hear Vladimir telling his parents, “And he actually mixed it with barbeque sauce! It was awful!...Oh! Eddie’s back!”

Vladimir and his parents were drinking cups of Eddie’s modified fake blood and comparing flavor preferences. “They like most of them Eddie. I think this will work.”

Dean rubbed his forehead, really hard. “You have vampires still alive in your kitchen. And WHAT will work?”

Eddie jumped in. “Uh, they’re planning on moving back to the sanitarium, eschewing human blood and living on the fake stuff. They’ll redo the place to be real-human-blood-unfriendly and it will be open for Sheriff Mills to drop in and check on them and other converted vampires now and then. That sound right, Beryx?”

“Right.” confirmed Beryx solemnly. Anica nodded.

“And, if it works out, I’m sending Vladimir to join them,” Eddie added.

Dean groaned and shook his head. “This is really out of control. I have the feeling Sam and I will be cleaning up this mess. Whatever you want if you can get Jody’s okay, Eddie. Come on Sammy, let’s go to Tennessee.”

Sam wished them good luck, waived slightly and followed his brother to the barn. Vladimir hurried after them, dressed in his floppy hat with its netting and his cloak.

“Why are you covered up like that, Vlad?” Sam asked.

Inside the barn, Vladimir pull off his hat and cloak and tossed them aside. “The sun will burn my skin off of me if I don’t. But, look what I can do!” He walked a few feet up the wall and sat there looking down on the Winchesters.

“And this.” He did his disappear-and-move routine, ending up behind them. “Back here. I can mesmerize like Papa and I can see in the dark and hear real good.”

“Whoa.” Sam nodded and looked to where Vladimir had started as he tried to wrap his mind around what happened. Dean frowned.

“Eddie says I’m destined to being a vampire hunter. I don’t know if I can kill someone. You guys might have to help me.” Vladimir dug his hands into his pockets and waited for a response.

“We’ll talk about it Vlad,” Sam said. “We’re going to have to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Vladimir pulled on his outdoor gear and waved to the brothers as they disappeared down the steps under the floor. Sam gave him a wink and thumb up as he ducked down behind Dean. Now confident, Vladimir raced back to the house.


	28. Chapter 28

Dean and Sam stood at the construction barrier at the lane’s end, and stared down at the tops of the trees very far below. With the setting sun the trees threw long shadows.

“You two researching the witch?” The brothers looked back to see the bulging-eyed woman they had seen hanging clothes.

“Uh, something like that,” said Sam, not sure if he should ask about her eyes. Instead he started with a side conversation. “Say, did this road actually go farther than this?”

“Yeah,” the woman said. One day a few years ago the other half of Brammerung just dropped off the side of the mountain. Everyone died. All except Amazing Bob.”

“Amazing Bob?”

“Ha! Sorry. Inside joke. Our bus driver Bob lived in that part of the town and he was the only survivor. We found him sitting at the edge of the drop-off looking over the destruction. We moved him by the community center in the house where Art Calvinni lived -- The Amazing Calvinni he billed himself. Art isn’t there anymore; he was in the other end of town when it collapsed. Bob didn’t change a thing. He even kept what’s left of Art’s sign above the door, so people started to call him Amazing Bob.”

“You came in on the back road?” she continued. “Bob can drive his bus down that narrow thing at an amazing clip as if it’s a two-lane road. We think that alone is .... amazing.”

A very large woman in a house dress approached the small group. “Cindy, who are these guys?”

“Oh, Marge. I haven’t asked yet.”

Sam introduced himself and his brother. “We’re here to find the solution to all these illnesses,” he added.

“The witch?” Marge asked.

“Now, Marge,” Cindy said. “We don’t know that’s so.”

“But nobody has any better suggestion, right?” Marge retorted. “You think your bug eyes is normal? She’s picking us off one-by-one.” 

“She’s only had those eyes for a couple of weeks. I was thin until a month ago,” said Marge to the brothers.

“Do you know the witch?” asked Sam.

“I just know these are all hexes, so there must be.” Marge stood defiant.

“Okay,” said Dean. “It’s getting dark. Can we stop by and talk about your daughter’s illness tomorrow? Maybe we can find this witch.”

An agreement to meet was made and the Winchesters went back to the Silverado at the community building.

Bob was still sitting outside his house when they got there. He opened the community building door and motioned them in. He pulled out blankets and a couple lanterns and pointed out where the emergency food was. He apologized for the lack of electricity. The electric lines had entered the town through the other end before it fell. So did the phone line. Without a cell tower, there was no phone service of any kind. The residents relied on generators to keep their small dwellings lit and heated.

The brothers settled in for the night and slept soundly until they heard the racket outside early the next morning.

Bob sat in front of his house, waiting for the townspeople to board the bus. Someone announced “We’re all here!” and he hopped behind the wheel and the bus took off.

Sam and Dean watched the bus leave town and coast smoothly along the one lane road, around the hairpin curves as if on a broad highway. The passengers were reading peacefully or chatting with each other as if there were not a massive drop right beside them every inch of the way. Amazing Bob.

Back under their blankets, Sam and Dean awoke to the sound of the bus returning a few hours later. They got up to see the bus pull in with one passenger, a young woman in a white uniform.

“Hey, boys. ‘bout time you were up,” said Bob. “This here is Nurse Nancy. Miss Bratch these guys are Dean and Sam Winchester. They’re here to find the source of our illnesses. Maybe they could help you.”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. Maybe ‘they’ could help ‘her?’

“We were going to interview Marge Andrum this morning,” suggested Sam.

“Sounds good,” said Nancy, looking over her notes. “I can start at that end of town and work this way. You guys can tag along.”

Not having a better idea, the brothers followed Nancy to the Andrum house.

“Hello, Marge,” said Nancy. “Time for my weekly review. How’s Velma?”

“Well, the ointment you left us last time does stop her scratching all the time.,” said Marge Andrum as Nancy entered with Sam and Dean behind her. “But the acne is still just as bad.”

“Okay. These guys are Sam and Dean. Amazing Bob suggested they tag along with me this time. The have something to do with some illness study. There are so many special authorities popping in and out I can’t keep track. I’m glad Bob can.” Nancy turned her attention to the child Velma.

“We met yesterday. Have a seat, boys,” Marge directed the Winchesters to the kitchen table. “Coffee?”

After passing out cups of the hot brew, she joined them at the table.

Dean started the conversation. “Bob said your daughter Velma was the first to contract an illness...”

“Yes,” Marge said. “Six months ago. Suddenly there’s this rash all over her body. Nothing clears it up. A few weeks ago, I’m suddenly twice my weight and it doesn’t go down. Mack woke up with those horrid lesions on his body just a week ago. I blame Barb across the street. She’s jealous of my Velma. Then her Bertha got warts. Serves them right.”

“So, you think Barb has been putting hexes on your family?” asked Sam.

“Well, not Barb. She’s to dumb to do be able to do that. So is her daughter. Bertha can’t hold a candle to my Velma in looks or smarts. Barb is jealous. No, I think she found someone who could harm us, someone who can cast spells. I don’t know who. Nobody in town.”

“Okay, Marge,” said Nancy. “Keep up the anti-itch ointment and replace the other medication with this. Maybe it will dry up her sores where the other one won’t. The doctor will come next week and prescribe something for your weight. All of your signs are great – blood pressure, A1G, cholesterol, heart – maybe he will have some ideas by then.”

Nancy, Dean and Sam gave their farewells and headed to the McMinn house across the street.

Barb McMinn answered the door and let the threesome enter. Inside were her husband Andy and three children, the oldest a young girl with pronounced warts covering her face and arms. Nancy went straight to the girl and began her examination.

“Awww, poor Bertie, still no difference,” she sighed.

“Your ointment dissolved some of the warts, but others replace them. It’s exactly the same number of them no matter what we do,” Barb said. Andy nodded and threw up his hands in frustration.

“Guys, this is Sam and Dean Winchester, Nancy told them. “They’re experts in causes of diseases, not just the viral kind. They are thinking along the same line as you are as to the cause.”

Andy watched Nancy examine Bertha and the Winchesters followed Barb into the next room.

“We’re hearing that the people here are being hexed,” Dean started. “First the children, now the adults, too. Any idea who might be casting spells in this town?”

Barb looked at Dean warily. “You serious about this? I’m not sure I should say anything. We were puzzled at first but now I’m really scared.”

“Yes,” Sam said. “I noticed only the one child is affected in this family. In most of the other families, the whole family seems to have a disease and not always the same disease. I’m afraid if this isn’t stopped, the rest of your family will be affected, too.”

“That’s what I was thinking. It’s only a matter of time,” said Barb. “And I want it to stop.”

“So, who is this witch and where can we find her?” Dean pressed.

Barb looked into the front room where her family was and whispered, “I think her name is Rose and she lives alone further up the mountain. Her place is spooky and she never comes to town. I know people can buy herbs and stuff, but I think she sells more. I was told she can perform spells for a price. Not that I would know directly...”

“How can we find her.”

“Well, there’s a trail that runs behind our house and it runs along the edge of where the other part of town dropped off and it goes to the lane that used to go from the town and up the mountain. It ends at Rose’s place, an old house with a rose hedge all around it. In fact, the whole place is infested with rose brambles.”

“But,” Barb warned. “If you go, don’t leave from here. It’s kinda known, but I can’t afford to have my neighbors know I told you or someone might target us, if you know what I mean.”

“Good enough,” assured Sam. “We’ll be discreet. In fact, we’ll leave right now and go back to our truck for supplies and go up through the woods behind the town where we can’t be seen.”

“Okay,” Barb McMinn with some relief.

The Winchesters left with Nurse Nancy, but instead of following her to the next house, they headed back to the truck.


	29. Chapter 29

At the Silverado, Dean gathered guns, knives and potions in preparation for anything they could think of, including the witch-killing bullets and the infamous everyone-killing Colt, and stuffed them into a duffel bag. The Winchesters walked to behind the community center to get into the woods above the town and crossed out of sight of the houses to where they expected to find the lane.

A long distance across they turned down to the cliff’s edge and took a peek down. They tried to see evidence of a town in the heap of rocks and vegetation at the bottom, but couldn’t really see anything so far down. Not much farther along the cliff, a muddy lane started at the bluff’s edge and led upward.

“Well,” said Sam, doing a last check of all the weapons and potions in Dean’s bag. He tucked a sheathed knife in his pants. “Here we go on a witch hunt. I hope we’re lucky.”

“Piece of cake,” Dean assured him, and they headed up the lane to Rose’s place.

The lane above Brammerang wound gently through an oak forest around the mountain and narrowed as it advanced. Eventually it stopped abruptly at two bent metal gate posts piled with sawbriar. The gate was long gone. Beyond that a path took Sam and Dean between masses of mostly dead brambles interspersed with some scraggly pines. The path passed through a gap in a tall hedge of brambles sporting pink roses that completely surrounded an ancient two-story Victorian style home.

Sam looked over the gardens of lilies, daisies and violets that lined the long porch as Dean knocked on the door. And they waited.

Eventually they heard footsteps and as the door creaked open a Viennese waltz poured out the door from a phonograph inside. The lady that peeked around the door was tall and thin, and wore a long silvery gown with a broad collar interlaced with a black Art Deco pattern.

“May I help you?” she said with some suspicion.

Dean tucked his fingers in the duffle bag of weapons he was carrying. “Hi. My brother and I are having major problems with a neighbor, and a friend told us we could get some helpful potion or spell here to solve our problem. Am I mistaken?”

“What kind of problems?” Her hand swept towards three wooden rocking chairs that appeared to begin rocking in response.

No one sat.

“Well, a lot of people are getting diseases in town lately. I figured if this person did, too, it wouldn’t look suspicious, but he would guess the reason,” Dean offered.

“And what do you offer in exchange?” Rose looked at the open duffle bag and added. “You should know you can’t kill me.” She knew.

Dean pulled out a gun and shot.

“You can’t kill me.”

Dean pulled out another gun and shot.

“You can’t kill me, but you’ll get your disease.”

Thorny branches from the tall hedge slid swiftly over the porch railing and wrapped around the Winchesters, pulled them up and flung them far from the house. Where they landed, the brambles around them crept towards them, stopping just short of them in all directions.

“That won’t stop us,” Dean pulled out a knife. “We’ll chop our way out. Sam? What’s wrong?”

Sam was struggling out of his shirt, exposing huge boils all over his shoulders. They started appearing on his face and down his body. Soon, Dean realized it was happening to him, too.

They pulled their shoes and socks off. Boils had reached the soles of their feet. It became too painful to move at all, let alone stand and make chopping motions. They were trapped, unable to move and surrounded by a bramble patch growing higher around them.

Dean looked toward his brother through one unswollen eye. Both of Sam’s eyelids were shut with boils. Both could do nothing but lie still and wait, but for what?

“I used a witch-killing bullet. It should have killed her. And I used the Colt. It’s impossible that the Colt didn’t kill her! It kills everything.”

Sam could only grunt.

For hours they laid there until they heard footsteps on the nearby path.

A young boy’s voice said, “Papa! There’s someone over there in the thorns.”

There was some slashing of branches and finally Dean saw through his one good eye, two figures covered head to toe in white cloth, like actors from ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ The tall one pulled back the cloth wrapped around his head to see better.

Dean saw gray eyes. “Oh, shit!”

“Wha?” Sam mumbled.

The taller figure said, “You see, son, you shouldn’t feed on bodies like these. They will make you sick.”

“Beryx and...” Dean was too sore to say more.

“It’s Vladimir and Beryx,” Beryx informed Sam. “So, what should I know before we meet your witch besides that her name is Rose and you failed?”

“She can’t be killed,” said Sam.

“So, that kills Plan A. I’ll use plan B. Come on, son.” Beryx turned to go back to the lane.

“What about us?” called Dean.

“Not like you can help us.”

“Bitch!” Dean attempted to get up and fell back down with a whimper.

“See, Vlad,” Beryx said as they left. “Take note of Dean. Always struggle no matter the odds. If all seems lost, be like Dean Winchester.”

“Even though he is just a chimp with a stick...” he added a minute later.

Sam snorted.

“Shaddup, Sammy!”


	30. Chapter 30

Beryx, with young Vladimir at his side, passed through the freshly trimmed rose-studded hedge, and knocked at the door to Rose’s house. She was taken aback at the sight of the two dressed as Bedouins straight from the desert when she opened the door.

“What is this?” Rose asked. She stepped outside to look over the two.

“I heard you might be able to help us,” Beryx began. “You see, my son and I have a high sensitivity to the sun. We have to remain totally covered during the day. As you can imagine, this makes it an extreme hassle to associate with others. Look at what this condition has done to my eyes...”

Rose looked closely into Beryx’s gray eyes and was pulled into a trance.

“Now,” said Beryx sternly. “You will undo all of your spells you cast over the last several months. Then you will forget that you did so and you will forget anyone who visited you today.”

Rose looked up for a moment and finally said, “Yes,” and walked back into the house, nodding to herself.

Beryx grabbed his son and hustled him down the path and away from the house.

They found the Winchesters, now free of boils and no longer hemmed in with rose bushes. Before either brother could comment, Beryx pulled both up by their collars and abruptly pushed them towards the woods.

“We need to get away quickly. I’m not trusting my commands to the witch to cover everything. We need to be far away when she comes to her senses.” Beryx grabbed his son’s arm and dashed straight into the woods. “Follow us.”

Dean and Sam tried their best to keep up, though they did not have the vampires’ speed. Especially over the steep terrain off trail. Now and then vampires waited at rough spots and Beryx literally carried the brothers over boulders and down bluffs. Vladimir descended the steep slopes deftly on his own.

“I really hate that guy,” Dean hissed at Sam after one such carry. But, soon they were in view of the town.

Once on the street, Sam finally had a chance to ask the obvious question. “Uh, Beryx, we appreciate the rescue but, why are you here?”

Vladimir piped up. “Cas wanted to come and the rest of us followed.”

“Rest of us?” asked Dean. “What rest of us?”

Beryx pointed in the direction of the Silverado, now with the smaller Ford sitting beside it. Castiel and Eddie were talking to Bob and a couple of the other townspeople.

“The posse is here. You are welcome,” Beryx said with a grin, well, more of a sneer.

Dean wasn’t sure whether or not to be pissed, so he hurried to join Castiel and Eddie for some support. “Hey, Cas! What are you guys doing here?”

Castiel noted Dean and Sam’s arrival. “Eddie heard from Timothy that you would be dealing with unusually powerful beings, so I decided to come to help. The others joined me for...,” he paused to consider his words, “well, because it sounded like fun. And it IS Eddie’s truck.”

He continued. “I tried to heal some of the townspeople when I arrived, but for some reason they would not stay healed. However, some of the people here were suddenly healed on their own just before you guys came out of the woods. Did you find the cause?”

“Yeah, a witch,” said Sam. “We should make sure everyone was healed.”

The guys walked towards the other end of town. The hairy family was normal now, so was the man with the shortened limbs. But Cindy still had bulging eyes.

“Do you suppose the witch forgot some of her spells?” Sam asked Beryx. “Or, maybe she came out of her trance early?”

Beryx was not sure.

Marge was outside her home when they reached her place. She was not happy.

“Barb’s whole family is healed. But not my Velma,” she complained. “Not everybody is back to normal. What’s going on?”

Beryx looked at Sam, “I have a question, Sam. This is the lady who identified the witch?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if she asked for the witch to cast spells, why would she have a spell cast on her own daughter?”

“Someone else must have asked the witch, too.”

“That could be, but if so, Velma should be among her spells reversed. Who would want a spell cast on Velma?”

Sam thought and looked across the street. “Barb. This whole thing began over her quarrel with Marge over their daughters.”

They approached the McMinn house and as Sam knocked, Beryx told him, “I can make this quick.”

Barb opened the door.

“We just came to see if everyone is okay, now,” said Sam.

Beryx pushed past Sam and looked directly at Barb. She froze, mesmerized.

“Tell me,” Beryx commanded. “You called for a spell to be cast on a neighbor’s child. Who cast that spell?”

“Hannah.”

“And where will we find Hannah?”

“Up the road and there is a lane that goes down. It ends at her place.”

Beryx turned and walked out, leaving Sam to deal with a confused Barb McMinn.

“What’s going on?” Dean demanded as Beryx stalked past him.

Beryx didn’t slow down, but muttered as he passed, “There is a second witch. I’ll take care of it. Come on Vlad, it’s time for you to get some experience.”

Vladimir chased after his father and the two hurried down the road out of town.

Sam joined Dean, Castiel and Eddie.

“Damn! I hate that guy.” Dean muttered again.


	31. Chapter 31

Out of town and then take the downhill lane. Doing so took Beryx and Vladimir eventually to the home of the witch Hannah.

As they approached the place they saw a fiery glow through the chestnut and oak trees. The air became much warmer. And in the distance was the sound of metal clanging against metal. Finally the ground leveled off and they saw Hannah’s dwelling in the distance. 

It was a house of stone blocks with soldered iron grout holding them in place, and iron awnings protruding from above the doors and windows in a pleated fan pattern. A wrought iron fence surrounded the house. It all sat on a bare crag divided from the rest of the mountain by a deep gorge that wove around it.

Father and son crossed an iron bridge over the ravine. The bridge was straight like a drawbridge and was lined on both sides with pikes with wickedly sharp points, the middle ones standing at least eight feet tall. Vladimir pointed out the porous gray rocks in the water running below them.

“That’s slag from smelting iron,” his father informed him. “Someone upstream has been generating a lot of heat. I didn’t see anything in the town that would do that. Maybe it was in the part of town that fell.”

On the crag, they saw the source of all of the ironwork. A black haired woman in baggy pants and a leather smock and headband was hammering at something metal beside a pit of fire. She was facing away from them, and they could see sparks flying around her from the metal strikes.

From inside a basin beside her, a creature was watching them. First they saw just two golden brown eyes. Then it pulled itself up to show a scaly face, sharp teeth and slender, long-nailed fingers. It screeched at the two visitors.

“I know,” the woman responded. She lifted the tool she was working on with one hand, another pike. With a motion of her other hand she drew a white-hot flame from the fire pit and around the tool. Still-molten material slipped over the edge of the stone worktable she was at and dripped down into the gorge behind it.

The creature pulled up higher and displayed part of a pair of bat-like wings.

“A young dragon,” observed Beryx.

A fascinated Vladimir stooped down and wiggled the fingers of one hand as a friendly gesture toward the creature.

It shrieked again and Hannah stopped her work and looked back to the two. “What is your business?” she called out impatiently. She flicked off the stream of fire with a slight move of her hand, and turned to faced them.

Beryx nudged his son forward. “Okay, Vlad. You know what to do.”

Vladimir approached the witch more meekly than he intended to. “Uh, hi?”

Hannah scoffed. “You two are acting deceptive. What mischief are you planning?”

Vladimir pulled back his headdress and glanced back at his father, who stood unresponsive.

“Uh, well,” he looked around at his feet. “We’re here looking for a spell to reverse our sensitivity to the sun. It burns our skin...”

He finally looked up and into Hannah’s eyes. “We thought you would be able to cure it.”

She threw dirt into Vladimir’s face and the dirt turned into a coarse leathery skin that clung to his face and started growing around his head like a spreading mold.

“I can’t see! I can’t...breathe,” Vladimir cried. He clawed furiously at the thick material.

Finally Beryx stepped in. “That’s cruel! The boy wasn’t hurting anything. How could you do such a horrid thing?”

Hannah replied, “No, he was deceiving me. And you...”

But Beryx had her full attention. He had her mesmerized.

“You will undo your spell on the boy. Now! And then you will remove the spells you cast over the last several months. You will forget you reversed the spells and you will forget that the boy and I were here.”

He paused, still holding her attention with his eyes.

Finally the coating over Vladimir’s face crumbled back into dirt and the boy was able to dig it off with his fingers. Once he was able to snort dust and snot out of one nostril, he calmed down.

The young dragon squawked and climbed out of the basin. Hannah was able to resist Beryx at that moment, but he regained control.

“Finish my commands!” he reiterated.

She laid down the pike and turned to go into the house as Beryx watched her closely.

Beryx grabbed his son’s shoulder, and motioned for him to remain silent. Quietly they hurried across the bridge and up the lane.

Before they reached the shelter of the trees, Vladimir heard a slight squeek and a wimpering sound. He looked back to see the dragon sitting on the bridge looking like it had lost a friend.

“Move!” Beryx insisted. And the two picked up speed. If the witch had heard the dragon and slipped back out of her trance, they seriously needed to be out of sight.

Part way up, they stepped off of the lane and into the forested mountainside. Leaping across the gorge was not a problem. Soon they were up to the town.

As soon as they saw their friends, Vladimir sprinted ahead. Still fearful the witch might hear, he whispered. “We saw Hannah! She tried to smother me and Papa made her fix my face, and made her undo the hexes, and, and, she has a baby dragon!”

“Sounds like quite an adventure,” said Eddie, patting the exited boy’s back.

“Okay,” said Beryx as he reached the group. “We have a powerful witch above and a powerful witch below. Somehow we will have to find a way to destroy them. I don’t know how soon one or the other will realize something is amiss and come to town looking for answers. I imagine it would be best if we could tackle them individually before they do.”

Castiel looked over the town. “I believe we need to evacuate the townspeople first.” He walked over to Amazing Bob, sitting in front of his home. They chatted until Bob nodded and walked over to the bus.

When he returned, Castiel said, “Bob agreed to drive them to Benton right now. We need to gather everyone and get them on the bus as soon as we can.”

Dean, Sam, Eddie, Castiel, Beryx and Vladimir spread out among the houses, banging on doors and shouting for them to evacuate immediately. No extra clothes or belongings, just hurry.

It wasn’t long until forty townspeople were crammed into the bus and Bob drove off. A dozen or more stragglers headed toward the community center and sat inside to wait for it to return.

The sun was beginning to set and it was dark by the time the bus returned. The remaining evacuees climbed aboard and Bob drove it away.

Dean had rummaged through his stuff in the Silverado and spread the contents on the ground on the lane outside Bob’s home. As soon as the bus left he began pouring a ring of salt. Sam knew the routine. He began to draw a pentagon in the middle with a spray can of black paint. A few more sigils and smudges and they seemed content. Eddie finished the set-up by converting the outer edge of the salt into iron.

Everyone gathered in the circle and they sat, making plans as they waited for sunrise.


	32. Chapter 32

Before sunrise, the bus could be heard returning to town.

“What’s Bob doing coming back? He should have stayed in Benton!”

The bus stopped at the community building and Amazing Bob hopped out. He fixed himself breakfast at home and later came out to sit in his usual chair by the door. No one was able to coax him into the circle. He wanted to sit where he always sat and watched the world.

The others returned to their makeshift sleeping pads in the circle and settled down for another hour or two of sleep.

Sunrise brought the sounds of the McMinn house being ripped apart by monstrous bramble branches. Near the boys, Amazing Bob’s attention was on an enormous mass of bramble branches filling the mountainside above them and building up behind the houses.

The McMinn house was turned inside out and its pieces were flung all about. Nobody was inside. The witch Rose seemed to be having her worst day. Whatever she had been expecting, her personal contacts in town were suddenly gone, as were everyone else. “Where are they? Where are my allies?” She searched about for anyone to be forced out of the other houses by the shaking and shifting.

She finally noticed the Winchesters and friends in their protective circle, and then Amazing Bob. “Bus driver Bob! Where is everyone? Who are these strangers?” Brambles shrank back from her path as she marched down the street in Amazing Bob’s direction.

But then she stopped at noticing something she saw in the trees near the circle. “I knew it! It’s her doing.!”

She pointed sternly at the Hannah’s young dragon hidden in the branches of an oak reaching up from the cliff’s edge. “Get your owner, you sickly little chicken! Get her up here!”

The young dragon slid back in fear into a crook in the tree and finally slipped out to glide down into the lower witch’s quarters.

But, Hannah was already up, evident by the heavy smoke rising up through the trees below the town. But the ominous rosy glow in the smoke announced her recognition of Rose’s call. Tree tops began breaking out in flames, and the crackling sound of the advancing firestorm echoed up the cliff side.

The boys hunkered down and watched all up and down the cliff’s edge. Would Hannah come marching up the lane?

“Think she can fly like the Wicked Witch of the West?” Sam mumbled under his breath. “Oh my God! There she is!” He flattened to the ground and the others followed his move.

There in the midst of the flames and smoke, a dark figure rose up through the air with a pike held high in position to be thrown. Her black hair, dark eyes, and dark smelter’s smock gave the impression of a ninja leaping over the cliff’s edge. As she landed she launched the pike that pierced her foe through the belly and pinned her to the ground.

Rose shrieked, but only in anger. Brambles about her pushed her off of the pike and the hole made by the pike healed with barely a hint of blood. More brambles formed a solid shield in front of her, fending off the flames that swirled around Hannah and poured in Rose’s direction. Brambles grew towards Hannah in return.

“You are breaking our truce, Rose! What’s your problem?”

“My allies are being meddled with and all the people are gone. What have you done?”

“Nothing! You have allies? Doesn’t that endanger the truce?”

“You have yours, too, Hannah! We’ve both been doing it, each with our own select townspeople. It’s gotten to be a silly, stealthy contest. Let’s quit playing this little game and have it out.”

“I’m all for finishing this, Rose. Someone is meddling. My pet has been watching this skinny cowardly boy that tried to perform some sort of magic on me.”

Rose straighten up. “One of them?” She pointed towards the men up the road.

Hannah looked towards where she pointed. “Yeah, that’s the runt, with them!”

Vladimir shrunk back. So did the dragon in the oak near the group.

“And that man!” Rose pointed towards Dean. “That’s the one who thought he could kill me. And he has somehow repelled my spell!”

“Our plan has boomeranged on us,” Beryx said to no one in particular.

“No, it’s ‘Brammeranged’ on us,” Sam rebutted.

A scattering of chuckles hid the foreboding feeling among the men that they were about to be destroyed completely.

The two witches agreed without any actual words that their feud was going to be postponed and the strangers were now their prime focus. They faced their new foes and each raised a hand towards them. The ground began to shudder.

Rocks pushed up through the ground, trees fell, and fierce winds blew the salt and iron ring, the markings inside it, and the men across the earth. They were all blown over and far beyond the cliff’s edge.

Sam looked around himself as men, trees and boulders dropped down with him. Castiel would eventually recover from the fall. Beryx and Vladimir were trying to glide to the trees beside them to get some traction but the winds kept pushing them back. Beryx grabbed Dean and Vladimir and again tried to glide with the extra weight. Same results, they were pushed back. The ground came closer.

And, where was Eddie? Could Eddie do something? If Eddie should hit first, would they be landing in Jell-o? But, there was no Eddie.

The ground was suddenly a few yards below them and they all were screaming. Vladimir was calling for his Papa. No modesty due now. “Is it going to hurt?” Vladimir as asking.

‘No,’ Sam thought to himself. Actually, it wouldn’t hurt all. Probably all would seem to just...stop.

And it did stop. But, nobody hit the ground. They were simply back where they were on top. They felt soft ground around them and grabbed each other to be sure they all were actually okay. In the midst of them sat Amazing Bob in his usual chair.

“So, did you guys have a plan for this, too?” Amazing Bob asked them as the landscape continued to be flung at them. An invisible bubble shield protected them. The others looked at each other and realized they really hadn’t formalized a plan. “I think Eddie was going to do something about them,” Dean proposed.

The witches finally recognized that the flying debris was no longer threatening the strangers and stopped their tantrum.

“Bus driver Bob! Are you with these strangers?” called out Rose.

Amazing Bob ignored them, and continued his conversation. “Do any of you guys know exactly how he was planning to stop them?”

Dean again: “Uh, well, he can draw out demons...But, they aren’t demons, are they?...And if he can touch one of them he can draw out their souls, though it can’t kill them, right?, so....I’ve got nothing. Anyone?”

The others shook their heads.

“Well, if he did have a plan,” said Amazing Bob, “What part of it do you suppose that is?” He pointed towards a sheltered area between them and the pair of witches, where Eddie was hunkered down. “I saw him circling up around the houses earlier. So, none of you noticed he had left you?” The men all grunted, ‘no.’ Vladimir just lay there wiggling his fingers in the direction of the young dragon watching him intently from the crook in the oak tree.

The witches looked around at the total destruction. Only parts of each house remained. What wasn’t charred by the fire was crushed by the brambles. None of the townspeople were there and Amazing Bob and the strangers were in some sort of protective bubble. They couldn’t get at them, but is seemed the strangers couldn’t do anything about the witches. A stalemate.

“I guess we will have to simply collapse this town and bury them and their protective bubble with it,” suggested Rose.

“Agreed” replied Hannah.

The brambles began moving and carrying down tools and containers of some sort from Roses place. And Hannah flung her pike into the chasm below and it soon returned with tools of her own hanging from it.

Powders and other mysterious materials were flung into a cauldron. Hannah started the fire in it and stirred it with her pike. Hannah carved staves from her brambles. Soon they were standing at opposite sides of the smoking cauldron, stamping the staves against the ground, and chanting.

The ground shook.

Eddie had hoped they would have come closer, but it obviously wasn’t going to happen. So, he made a different move. He changed the ground in front of him into iron and began turning the ground beyond it into an iron strip moving in the direction of the witches. He saw Hannah pointing in its direction though; they noticed his move.

Hannah caused the ground between them and Eddie to turn molten until it exploded high into the air and Rose’s brambles shoved the whole mass over and on top of Eddie. He began turning the ground around him to water, hoping to carve an air pocket to slip into. But, soon there was nothing but a hill of boulders with steam and water oozing out as they crushed downward.

“There they are,” Sam noted.

The witches walked over and down the hill of boulders, still chanting and stamping their staves on the ground. They came together facing the strangers and stamped harder and chanted louder. The protective bubble began to shake with the ground and slipped a bit toward a crevasse forming between them and the witches.

Water being forced from the hill of boulders washed between the witches and careened down the crevice. The men could see the plunging water from inside their bubble as it shifted again to lean over the crevice.

The water rushed harder and swept around the witches’ legs. Then harder yet.

Finally the side of the hill opened totally with a gush of water that threatened to push the alarmed witches along with it. Two hands grabbed their legs.

“Got them!” The hands were Eddie’s and in them he was clutching the orbs of two human souls – those of the two witches.

“Got them! Your souls,” Eddie rolled over and stood up, holding the orbs high as if they were newly won awards.

“So, what!” shouted Rose, turning towards Eddie.

“They don’t sustain us, fool! We live on!” added Hannah. She threw her hands out to her side as if to convey, ‘Are you nuts?’

Before Eddie could respond, a demon appeared beside him. Another popped into view at his other side.

“That is mine,” said one demon and reached for one of orbs.

“And this is mine,” said the other, reaching for the other.

“No, they are mine!” Eddie clutched them closer and stepped back. “Ladies, without these you have no contract.”

The witches considered this. They weren’t exactly convinced.

“Not reasonable,” declared Rose. 

“We have no control over those.” She said to the demons. “They’re part of the contract that guarantees our power and our two thousand years of life. Get them you fools!”

The demons lunged for the orbs. Eddie crushed the orbs, then drew the demons out of their vessels, gleefully destroying them in front of the witches shocked faces.

“Souls, gone! Demon contractors, also gone! No contract, witches gone, too!”

The witches knew it was over. They were holding handfuls of their own hair out in front of themselves. Their skin turned gray and powdery, wrinkles formed and deepened and finally dry flesh dropped off their bodies, leaving only their clothing draped over skeletons. The skeletons also dried up and crumbled.

Eddie, reveling in his great success, shuffled through the witches’ remains in the direction of his friends. He walked confidently up to the men, who were no longer surrounded by the bubble, and stopped directly in front of Amazing Bob.

Eddie addressed Bob. “I don’t believe any of the masters of our demons have the power that these demons were able to grant Rose and Hannah. They would have to be more powerful than Lucifer to grant such power and not be threatened by the powers being used against them. Are YOU the being with that much power?”


	33. Chapter 33

“Eddie, have a seat.” Chairs suddenly appeared in a circle including Amazing Bob’s chair. The men sat down in them, while young Vladimir sat behind his father’s chair, still keeping an eye on the young dragon nearby.

“Yes, I have that power. I am God,” announced Amazing Bob.

“No,” claimed Dean. “We’ve met God. We call him ‘Chuck.’ You are not Chuck. You might be a god, but you are not THE God.”

“No, I am THE God.” assured Amazing Bob. “I am THE God, but the Creator of another universe. Chuck created you and your universe. I know Chuck and I know, like you do, that Chuck has recently gone on vacation with his sister. In fact, they are vacationing in my creation. Well I, the Creator of that universe, have been on my own centuries-long vacation in Chuck’s universe. Understand?”

“I hate to admit, I can follow that,” Sam said. Dean, Castiel and Eddie nodded. Beryx appeared doubtful but wisely remained silent.

Amazing Bob surveyed the damage about them for a minute, then continued. “Well, after arrival and after some observation, I located a couple of demons from this universe to contract with a couple of your witches for two thousand years of use of a minute fraction of my power in exchange for their human souls in the two-thousandth year, which souls would be converted in Hell into hugely powerful demon witch beings. Then I would see what happens. This being the immense universe it is, this scenario is playing out on planets all over this universe.

“Everywhere the same thing has happened. The witches evolve power, they find each other and clash, destroying half of this isolated town, withdrawal and clash again, destroying the rest of the town and all of its people, and finally will finish out the two thousand years polishing their powers.

“Except for this one planet. Only here, you, a group of beings of free will, expecting no profit for their deeds, figured out the danger and actually defeated the witches. Not only that, but you exhibited the foresight to evacuate the townspeople first, saving them all from death.”

“Do you realize how nearly impossible this is?” Amazing Bob leaned in to stress his point. “The first catastrophe here was in 1928. Nobody living recalls what happened during the destruction of most of Brammerang. All anyone understands today was that somehow the ground below the town simply slipped into the gorge below. When some of the townspeople recently rediscovered Rose and Hannah, casting spells were considered by most people to be mere silly superstition!

“Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere else, their towns of Brammerang lay buried at the foot of the mountain with all of its townspeople. And their witches will continue to their two-thousandth year.”

“What surprises me most, though, is me. I would normally just drop the rest of this town right now. It’s just rubble and the townspeople won’t know. Why should I care about them? I could snap my fingers, back up history, restore the witches and destroy the town with its people like I expected it to have happened.”

Amazing Bob snapped his fingers, but the rubble was instead restored to as the town was when Dean and Sam arrived.

“But, I can’t,” Amazing Bob told them. “I’m going to take my bus down to Benton. I’ll gather the townspeople and bring them back. Somehow they matter to me now. Chuck told me my creation was incomplete without free-will beings in the mix. I’m beginning to understand. Free-will and selflessness.”

He stood up and grabbed his keys from inside the door and headed towards the bus, but paused halfway there and turned around to face the five men still seated.

“You know,” he said. “I can’t leave, rewarded as I am, without returning the favor. Just little favors that won’t mess with Chuck’s creation in any way. So, here goes...”

“Castiel. An angel still without wings. Considering your efforts, the least you deserve is to have had them restored long before now. So, by the power from my universe, I restore your ability to transport now, your vessel and anything else to absolutely anywhere.

“Edward Timms. I agree with the need to keep your involvement in the Lord’s miracles invisible. But, having to use a recorder to communicate with your higher soul to sidestep the veil that hides the living world from the higher realms is an insult to your proven selflessness in doing your Lord’s work. Throw away the recorder. You can now face your soul directly.

“Beryx Tomescu and Vladimir. I am dismissing your craving for blood and you insensitivity to the sun, but retaining your other supernatural skills.

“And Mama!” Vladimir popped up from behind his father’s chair. “And Mama!”

“Got it,” said Amazing Bob. “Beryx, Anica and Vladimir is a family, so Mama, too.”

“Samuel Winchester. You already have the start of sensing the supernatural. I’m fulfilling it. Expect to sense human from demon and good will from bad without need for physical evidence.

“Dean Winchester. I’m adding a tenet from my creation. Your aim will always hit its target, even if the target moves. In my universe a straight line can turn corners. Just aim wisely.

Amazing Bob climbed up into the bus and drove off down the road to Benton.

“I’ll figure out that spiel later,” said Eddie. He pulled an orb out of his pocket and waved it in front of Dean. “I recently paid a visit to Hell. Wanna place this rescued soul into a stillborn for me? We’ll take the small truck.”

Dean’s eyes lit up. And they were soon in the truck bouncing down the road out of town.

“Let me test something,” Castiel told Sam. Castiel disappeared, but immediately reappeared on Sam’s other side. Then he and Sam disappeared and reappeared behind the Silverado. “Amazing Bob told the truth. I have my wings.” Vladimir had already jumped up into the driver’s seat and was playing with the steering wheel, and that gave Castiel an idea.

“Beryx, ride shotgun. Sam and I will sit in back. Vladimir is driving.”

“Huh?” Beryx was stunned.

“It will be okay.” Castiel assured him. “Vladimir can do this.”

Even Vladimir was unsure, but he grabbed the wheel. “Okay...”

“Turn the key, Vladimir,” Castiel commanded.

Sam wasn’t sure whether he should be watching Vladimir or Castiel. Beryx was positioned to grab the wheel at the first inching of the truck.

Vladimir turned the key. The truck started. The truck and everyone in it disappeared.

Later that day, Amazing Bob’s bus returned and its passengers slipped out the door to hurry to inspect their homes. They knew the witches were gone, and there was a renewed sense of better times coming. It felt as if all their dirty sins had been forgiven and they could breathe freely again.

Amazing Bob looked out the driver’s window to see a distraught young dragon curled around young Vladimir’s shoes and blanket. The boy had forgotten them in the haste to leave.

“Yes, I admit I overlooked you,” he said. “But, I can fix this, little one.

He gather up the creature and Vladimir’s belongings, loaded them onto the floor of the bus, and began the second drive to Benton.


	34. Chapter 34

The Silverado appeared suddenly outside Eddie’s Tennessee barn.

Sam had caught on with Castiel’s subtle joke, and jumped out from the back seat. He hurried to the barn and opened the door. “Ready!” he called.

Castiel hopped out and went around to the driver’s door. “Okay, Vladimir. Can you reach both pedals with your feet?”

Vladimir was suddenly very unsure of the whole thing. His feet didn’t reach the pedals, and he could barely see over the dashboard in this monstrous truck. He looked wide-eyed at Castiel. What now?

Sam came out of the barn with a grin on his face. He had two empty oil cans and some twine in hand. He remembered the day his big brother was away and his Dad let him steer the Impala. It was glorious! He wasn’t going to let Vladimir miss out on this momentous event in his life.

With the cans firmly tied to the brake and the accelerator, Sam closed the truck door and leaned in.

“Okay,” he told the boy. “Now you have three things to pay attention to. “Right foot to move. Left foot to stop. Steer with both hands. Here we go. Push with your left foot. Hold it! With your right hand pull the knob over there to ‘D.’

Beryx helped the boy find ‘D.’ “He shouldn’t be taught to drive with both feet,” he whispered to Sam.

“I know, Beryx. I’m going for confidence this first time. Now, Vlad, lift you left foot and put your right foot down, lightly – okay, harder than that.”

The truck lurched and stopped.

“Okay, right again!”

The truck lurched a bit to the left. Vladimir was about to panic.

“You’re doing great. Right foot, just a little harder.”

The truck crawled forward.

“Yes! That’s good. Turn the wheel a little to the right.”

It took about ten minutes and everyone around the boy were sweating, but Vladimir guided the monstrous vehicle gradually all the way into the barn. He press the brake and his father pointed out the ‘P’ mark on the gearshift.

Success! Ignition off. Everyone out. Gather belongings.

While Beryx called his wife to announce their impending arrival, Sam whispered to Castiel that he wanted to hang around here a bit. He wanted to see what was up the road and said he’d just take the tunnel to Indiana later.

Good enough for Castiel. He, Beryx and Vladimir disappeared.

Seconds later, they reappeared.

“Okay,” Castiel announced patiently. “Say the words.”

“Beam me up Scotty!” shouted Vladimir.

They disappeared again.

Sam grinned and shook his head. He walked out of the barn and then up the lane into the woods. At one point the scenery changed abruptly and a sign ahead read “BEWARE OF THE FAIRIES.”

Fairies. He remembered Dean having once zapped a tiny fairy in a microwave and hoped the story hadn’t reached this mountain top.

Not far up the path Sam heard buzzing. His new supernatural gift from Amazing Bob told him ‘Fairies coming. Danger! Angry fairies coming!’

Sam turned and ran, past the sign and through the invisible barrier. Near the open barn door, he glanced back to see silvery sparks popping out through the barrier and catching up with him.

He dragged closed the barn door. He climbed over the appropriate door in the floor, and pulled it up.

There was loud buzzing outside the barn doors and they shook. Sam remembered the cache of weapons in the truck. ‘Forget them!’ Into the tunnel, shut the hatch and out the other end.

Sam came up in the Indiana barn. He shut the door and sat on top of it for a few minutes while he let his heart slow down. Safe!

He called Dean on his smartphone. Dean should be in a locale with cell phone reception by now. Dean can gather the tools when he and Eddie arrive at the Tennessee barn.

In Cleveland, Tennessee, outside a birthing clinic, Amazing Bob’s bus suddenly appeared beside Eddie’s Ford. Passers by seemed not to notice. Bob climbed out of the truck and loaded the dragon and Vladimir’s belongings into a front corner of the truck bed. He passed a hand over the creature’s eyes to cause it to sleep.

“When you wake up, you’ll be in your new home. You’re new life will be fantastic. I promise!”

Amazing Bob hopped back into the bus, saying to himself, “Free will, selflessness, and there’s something more...yes, compassion! What the Creator God of this universe understood, and the angel Castiel, and the past-life apostle Edward Timms. The great secret of this universe. I figured it out! These are what I will add to my universe and it won’t be merely good, it will be glorious!” 

The bus disappeared. Passengers in Benton were expecting him to arrive soon. Here he was their bus driver Amazing Bob, and during his stay in Brammerang, they had grown extremely valuable to him.

Eddie and Dean were sitting outside the door to the clinic lobby.

Eddie was just now experiencing his new connection with Timothy. “I hear a different voice, not like mine on the recorder! I think I’m seeing something, too, in my head. He says the still birth in this clinic has just happened and in a few minutes the nurse will be leaving the mother alone with the stillborn child. Here’s the soul.”

He handed the white orb to Dean, who slipped it into his pocket.

“The tie and white shirt will be enough for you. Timothy says indoors and to the left down the hall, turn right at the side hall and in through the first door. It will be open. Go!”

Dean walked swiftly into the clinic and nodded to the receptionists as he rushed by. Left hall, right hall, first door, and in.

In bed through the low lighting he saw the mother in the bed sobbing uncontrollably over a bundle she held tightly.

‘I’m losing it,” Dean paused and took a long breath. ‘Here, goes...”

She looked up as he reached her and her grief swelled over him. Another breath. Lighten up.

“A little girl!” he said. “Hey, uh, funny you know...sometimes when the stork delivers, the silly bird forgets all the parts the first visit.” He held out the orb. “Really, she’ll be okay.” He pushed the orb against the child’s chest and, to his relief, the child immediately took a breath. “See? She’s finally arrived!”

Wow, was that awkward. Dean backed up and the mother reached a hand towards her daughter. The child reached back and the mother cried tears of joy.

Much better! Dean got the Hell out of there.

Outside, he found Eddie already in the passenger seat of the truck.

“The child’s name is Lilly and I have the mother’s name, too,” said Eddie. “Timothy’s feeding me family information right now in case you want it. You can check up on them now and then if you like. It’s really satisfying to learn a rescued soul has done well.”

“Of course,” he added more quietly, “since she’s a recovery direct from Hell, there’s always the chance that Lilly could grow up to burn down the house. You drive.”


	35. Chapter 35

An Apostle of the Lord, Chapter 35

 

“I’m a godfather again,” declared Dean as he and Eddie came up into Eddie’s barn in Indiana. “This one’s a girl. Lilly.”

“Did you get our weapons?” interjected his brother.

“Oh, no, I forgot. They can wait ‘til we are ready to leave.”

“I guess.”

Sam was celebrating with the Tomesku family in the side yard. Now free of death by sunlight, they were organizing a picnic outside, with short sleeves and without headwear. (Not that it mattered with darkness coming on.) “I can tan like the natives,” Anica was heard saying.

“Hey, Castiel,” Eddie called. “Do you know what that is up there?” He pointed up into the barn rafters where a bundle was hanging.

Castiel instantly appeared sitting on a barn beam and looked over the mysterious form. “Netted bag. It holds a tee-shirt, a pair of boy’s short pants, a bag of Frito’s chips, a baggy with cookies, crayons and a small tablet.”

“Vlad, is that your’s?” called out Beryx.

“That’s my stash!” announced the boy.

“Do you have any more of these stashes?”

“I recall seeing one in the trees out back,” said Castiel after he reappeared on the ground.

Vladimir walked around in the barn, looking upward and trying to remember where he had placed a third stash.

“Harmless,” said Eddie. “If it makes him feel more secure, it’s fine.”

About then, the celebrants heard a banging inside the barn. They turned so see the farthest door in the floor raising up.

“Quick!” Dean quiped. “Sammy! Is it human or supernatural?”

“Uh, supernatural?” Sam guessed. “Three feet tall, pointy ears, wearing a ranger’s outfit.”

By then, the creature was in full view and Sam was just reciting what he saw.

The creature, obviously an elf, walked up to Sam and flashed a badge looking much like an FBI badge, but with an unknown script. The elf looked back towards Eddie and declared, “We have a missing fairy, Eddie, and this guy was seen at the scene of the disappearance.”

“Is this badge for real?” asked Sam, turning it over in his hand.

“As real as yours and Dean’s,” Eddie said drolly.

“What’s the name. Is this Elfin text?” Sam couldn’t decipher the foreign script.

“You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it if you ‘could’ read it.” the elf replied.

“Let’s call him Daniel!” young Vladimir suggested.

The elf considered it as a valid way to move the conversation along and said, “Okay, I’m Daniel.”

“Danny, the elf official?” mocked Dean.

“That’s DANIEL, the elf official. Don’t push it.”

“That’s good,” enjoined Eddie. “Daniel, would it help if Sam goes back to the barn in Tennessee with you?”

“Yeah,” agreed Sam. “I have to go back for our supplies anyway. I’m glad to be of help.”

“Thanks for complying, Sam. Ready to go now?”

“Can I go, too?” Vladimir called after them.

“I’m okay with the boy coming,” said Daniel.

“Fine” said Anica. “Maybe it’ll burn some of that energy out of him by bed time.”

So, Daniel, Sam and Vladimir headed down the hatch.

Immediately after coming up in the Tennessee barn, Sam sought out the duffle bag of weapons.

Daniel found it first. He tugged on the handle and a spark flashed out of the bag, around his head and back in again. Daniel pulled it open and discovered the problem.

“Sam, there’s salt spilled all over the bottom of this bag. She’s locked into having to count all of the grains.” Daniel pulled out the weapons and miscellaneous, then began clearing a large area on the floor.

“Sam, could you get me a large glass of hot water? And something to use as a broom and dustpan?” Daniel dumped out the salt into the middle of the clean spot on the floor and shook the bag to get all of it out as the fairy flitted about and stung him again and again with electrical shocks. “Ow! Hey! I’m helping here.”

Vladimir followed Sam around inside the barn. Sam handed him a whisk broom and a sheet of thick paper and Vladimir took them to Daniel, while Sam filled a glass full of hot water from the tap.

They watched Daniel as he set the glass on the floor. He swept all of the salt onto the paper and dumped it all from the paper into the glass. He stirred the water and the salt dissolved into the liquid.

“No more grains of salt,” Daniel held up the glass, satisfied. The fairy calmed down, soon found a gap through the barn door and left for her home.

“That’s all,” Daniel concluded. “This case is closed and I’ll...”

“Sam! Sam!” Vladimir was shouting from direction of the Silverado. “It’s here! The dragon is in the truck!” He was standing on the rear tire, looking into the truck bed.

Sam and Daniel rushed to the truck to see, and, sure enough, the young dragon was curled up and watching Vladimir from its corner of the truck bed.

Vladimir could barely compose himself. He wiggled his fingers in the dragon’s direction, trying his best to exude friendliness towards the creature.

Daniel climbed over the tailgate and sat there to observe. “Come on, guy. Show us your human form.” But the dragon stayed the same.

“Have you seen this one before?” Daniel asked Vladimir.

“Yes! He’s my friend!” Vladimir suddenly quieted down and admitted quietly, “Well, I tried to be friends...”

“Cool,” Daniel responded. “I see the picture, now. Let’s get closer, Vladimir.”

The two approached the dragon and stopped to sit when it drew back.

“Okay, Vladimir,” Daniel said to the boy. “Reach a hand out as close as you can.”

Vladimir did reach out. He ran his fingers along the truck bed as far as he could reach and paused. The dragon did the same using its clawed fingers. Then Vladimir drew up the courage to actually touch the little dragon’s claws and paused again. He looked into the dragon’s reptile-like eyes.

“That’s good,” whispered Daniel. “Now let’s wait and let it respond.”

Vladimir looked down where his fingers touched the creature’s. Eventually the dragon interlaced its fingers with his. Its claws drew in to be replaced by human nails and its fingers narrowed into those of a child. Vladimir glanced back towards Daniel and Sam.

Sam moved slightly in the dragon’s direction, but Daniel smacked his arm and motioned him to the back end of the truck. “Find a blanket,” Daniel whispered to him.

The dragon’s eyes changed next, from it’s slitted golden irises, to the round human pupils on brown. Scales pulled back under its skin and hair grew out of it. A young boy’s face stared back into Vladimir’s face.

Soon a twelve-year-old boy – human and naked from head to toe – was curled up in the truck bed, still clutching twelve-year-old Vladimir’s fingers.

Sam tossed in a blanket near them to cover up the boy. “Let’s get him to Eddie’s where we can get him into some of Vladimir’s clothes.” He suggested.

“Do you have experience raising a dragon?” Daniel asked Sam.

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “That is going to be Eddie’s problem. He’s our official collector of strays.”

Daniel added, “My superiors are going to want me to look into your newly gained sensitivity to things of the magical realm and work out an understanding. They will be wanting some sort of an assurance that you are not a danger to them, and I’m eager to make my job easier. So, at some time I’ll be back to visit.”


	36. Chapter 36

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hey there.”

“Hey dere.”

“What’s you name?”

“Whatzur aim.”

Vladimir was trying to get the dragon boy to talk with him, but he was only getting a mimicked response. He tried a different tact.

“Okay, I going to call you Viktor.” Vladimir pressed his hand against the other boy’s chest. “Viktor.”

He pressed his hand against his own chest. “I’m Vladimir.”

Hand against the dragon boy. “Viktor.”

Hand against himself again. “Vladimir.”

“Vladmer,” said ‘Victor,’ cheerfully.

“Okay, Victor, let’s look at things and I’ll give you their names.” Vladimir took the other boy’s hand and led him into the barn. “That’s Eddie’s Jeep, it’s red...that way up there’s my stash...”

“Cute!” said Sam, sitting with Dean and Eddie. “Vlad doesn’t know a stranger. Seems he’ll even assign them their names to be friends.”

Dean and Eddie were seated at a table sitting out in the yard. Eddie had some marbles placed on the table and they were going to test Dean’s new supernatural power. Castiel arrived with Beryx and Anica just in time to see the demonstration.

The plan was for Eddie to pick a marble and Dean would flick another marble at it to see what happened. They started simply with Eddie pointing at a marble which Dean couldn’t miss. Then he moved the marble farther away. Then Eddie would point and suddenly move the marble to one side. Dean’s marble swerved when Eddie moved his and hit it anyway. Another test. Dean flicked his marble across the table top at a marble Eddie pointed at, and Eddie at the last second picked up his marble and held it high above his head. When he did, Dean’s marble suddenly swerved up into the air against any sense of gravity and struck Eddie’ marble.

The group marveled over the demonstration. 

“Bob did say straight lines curve in his universe,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” said Eddie. “Let’s find out how long distances affect Dean’s throw.” He gathered some walnuts from the ground and laid them on the table.

Just then, they heard Vladimir shout from somewhere in the barn, “Aaaah! Don’t eat it Viktor! It’s a kitty!” Castiel’s cat Cassandra popped out through the side pet door of the barn. Two other barn cats followed.

Castiel disappeared. Shortly, so did Eddie, being summoned by Castiel.

When Eddie reappeared in the room with the barn cats, he saw Castiel pointing at a short string of small fires. Eddie held his hand out and the fires quickly snuffed out.

“Did you just change the air around the fires into air without oxygen to put them out?” Castiel asked Eddie.

“You got it! Call me whenever you need an inferno quenched. Quick and easy.”

They looked up the wall to where the boy Viktor was clinging to a beam with a dragon hand and foot. Vladimir was just under him saying, “He didn’t mean it Eddie. I scared him.” Vladimir coaxed his friend down.

“I see I’m going to need a sprinkler system in the barn,” Eddie told Castiel.

Outside the barn, Sam and Dean were continuing the experiment. Sam, with a target walnut in hand, was pacing steps away from Dean. But, Dean, in his impatience threw his first walnut directly at Vladimir, who, as Dean expected, jumped to the side.

Vladimir jumped onto the side of the barn, then in through the door, up into the rafters, and finally down to the table. The walnut took a turn and followed him all the way around and out. It passed Vladimir, the turned back and conked him in the forehead.

Vladimir was shocked. So was Dean.

Then Vladimir was pissed! He leaped onto the table and bit Dean deeply in his arm, not letting loose when Dean beat him about the head.

Beryx finally separated the two, carrying Vladimir away from the table as Eddie inspected the deep wound.

Eddie pressed his hand against Dean’s wound and Dean cringed in response. It didn’t feel good inside him. “What’d you do?” Dean demanded.

“I don’t know if Vladimir’s bite could affect you so I changed all of the blood into pure generic blood. That means any unnatural elements were eliminated. Castiel would you heal Dean’s wound now?”

“So,” inquired Sam, “does that mean that alcohol is gone from his blood and Dean’s sober for the first time ever?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Eddie grinned.

Nearby, Beryx was telling his son. “What did I tell you about biting Dean Winchester?”

“It would make me sick?” Vladimir guessed.

“Right! You should do this instead.” Beryx held up the back his hand in front of Vladimir who watched it grow hair and the nails push out to form large claws. “Then you shove it up through his belly and rip out his heart!” He motioned towards Dean to emphasis his point.

“Bite me, Beryx!” said Dean in response.

“Hey, Vladimir,” Eddie asked from behind Beryx. “I thought you lost your fangs.”

“They grew back.” Vladimir proudly showed them off.

“Well, I think we need to take Vlad with us now,” Beryx pushed on. “Children aren’t safe around Dean.”

Anica punched him. “Quit being a jerk, Ber. Dean didn’t mean it and Vlad is thicker skinned that you’re pretending he is. We agreed to leave Vlad with Eddie until we got the san restored and we’re sticking to it. Cas, dear, our car’s all loaded to go. Could you give us a send off now?”

“Happy to.” Castiel waited for the Tomeskus to get into their sedan, and sent car and all to St. Louis.

Continuing the walnut test, Sam and Dean did determine that Dean’s walnuts did lose out to gravity eventually, and if Sam ran fast and far enough, Dean’s walnut stopped in midair and dropped straight to the ground.

That test done, it was time for the Winchesters and Castiel to go to the bunker. Castiel was about to pop the three of them there, when Sam said, “Stop a sec, Cas.”

“Vladimir!” Sam called out. “Do you know what you have to do when you want to teleport home?”

Sam lifted up on his toes and clicked his heals together three times, saying “There’s no place like ho...” and the three disappeared.

That left Eddie and the boys. He took them in the house for supper and thought about what he should feed a dragon – besides kitties. Vladimir chose for them. A bowl of cereal satisfied them. Eddie fixed himself cheese toasties and took them with him into the hall as in the kitchen Vladimir explained to Viktor the niceties of pouring milk without spilling it and using a spoon instead of fingers.

Eddie set up a second bedroom for Viktor, then went to the small mirror in the hall. He lifted the veil over it and tapped on the glass, trying to get the attention of someone in Glinda’s ballroom. It was some time before someone noticed him, and she explained that Professor Wogglebug was far away at the university at the moment.

Castiel appeared behind him. “Hey! You need pills from the professor for Viktor, right? I just remembered.”

“Yeah. One to give him skills with English and one to not forget me when I do miracles.”

“I’m supposed to be able to go anywhere and I haven’t tried transporting to Oz yet, so I would be happy to pop over to Wogglebug’s university in Oz to get them for you, just to see how it works there. You need to sleep, so you take care of the boys and I’ll have the pills waiting for you in the morning.”

“That would be so nice. I’m frazzled,” Eddie replied. So, Castiel disappeared to go about his task.

“Okay, boys. Take a bath and then it will be bedtime. Viktor, I’ll show you your room.” Eddie hung extra towels over the towel rod and got a bottle of Mr. Bubble out of the closet. Vladimir wouldn’t need English to show Viktor the joys of getting clean in a bubble bath.

Eddie passed Vladimir’s bedroom on the way back to the kitchen and glanced in to see two pairs of feet sticking out from under the covers in Vladimir’s bed. The boys were already settled in and fast asleep.

So, Eddie instead quietly wiped down the kitchen table and prepared for bed himself. He sat on his bed musing over how his ‘daddy’ instincts seem to have begun to kick in. He didn’t know a bachelor his age could have them, but there they were. Suddenly being responsible for someone else made the future feel a bit scary, but mostly Eddie was looking forward to the days to come.


	37. Chapter 37

“Eeeeeeeeee! They’re so cute!”

“Aaaaaaah!” and the smell of smoke.

Eddie popped out of bed, pulled on his jeans and a tee and rushed out of his bedroom. In the livingroom were a sheepish Castiel, just realizing his mistake in not coming alone with the pills; Professor Wogglebug, the pill maker; and Captain Fyter. Down the hall outside of Vladimir’s room was the excitable Scraps. The Ozians were just a bit too early to see the newcomer, Victor.

Eddie checked the boys’ room. Victor had calmed down and Vladimir was introducing him to Scraps who was still catching and smooshing bits of fiery ash in the air.

With that seemingly under control, Eddie padded back to the livingroom. “Let me guess, Castiel. You got the pills from the professor and word got around Emerald City.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Castiel admitted. “We tried to wait, but Scraps just couldn’t. Sorry!”

Scraps entered the livingroom. “I like Vladie’s Victor. The two of them are so cute together!”

“Vladimir!” Eddie called down the hall. “Fix yourselves some toaster waffles and join us outside.” And he led the others outdoors to some Adirondack chairs near the barn.

“New chairs?”

“Yeah,” said Eddie. I’m getting actual sit-down-and-chat company now, so I need them. Picnic tables are coming and I’m having an awning attached to the barn...Uh, who has the pills?”

“I do.” Wogglebug held out three pills. “One for Viktor to retain his memory when he witnesses your miracles, and basic American English vocabulary, literacy and writing for both of the boys. I understand Viktor has had minimal use of any kind of language, but Vladimir has been so sheltered, he may be missing some useful parts of the vocabulary. It may be few decades out of date on slang terms, but I suspect they will pick that up nicely on their own now.”

“So, do the boys get them now?” asked Castiel who noted Eddie nodding. “Do they go well with waffles?” He noted Wogglebug nodding, and then reacting in shock when the pills suddenly disappeared from his hand. “Well, they’re in their stomachs now.”

“Uh, okay.” Professor Wogglebug added, “Now, for the pills to work quickest, the children will need to exercise. It works with adrenaline in their brains. I believe Beau and Scraps have that covered.”

Captain Fyter held up a frisbee. “This will work for starters. We have more American toys for the outdoors as well.”

That done, Castiel called Sam Winchester on the phone to find how things were going in the Men of Letters bunker in Kansas.

Sam was on his laptop when he took Castiel’s call. “Hi, Cas. We’re okay, but I’m watching some people gathered at Eddie’s barn here. When Dean gets ready we’re driving there to see what is going on. Hmm, they all walked into the woods. I’ll know if they are friend for foe when we get there. Just target Baby’s back seat when you pop in.”

Shortly, the Winchesters were on their way to Eddie’s Kansas barn. There were no people in sight once they arrived and Dean stopped the Impala in front of the large barn doors.

Sam scanned the area for impressions of whatever was there. “Okay, supernatural signals from among the trees. No.. they ‘are’ the trees! Dean, we need to get out of here. They’re those tall black shapeshifters like what attacked us at the bunker, and we aren’t armed for five of them!”

Dean turned the car around and it sped back down the lane. Sam watched behind them to see the shapes of the trees change and five large geese taking their places and flying down the lane after the car.

“Now the shapeshifters are the geese behind us!” Sam told Dean. “Hi, Cas. Glad you could join us. We’re being chased by geese that are actually those black-spewing shapeshifters.”

Castiel nodded from the back seat and turned around to watch behind them as Dean sped up the car.

Dean decided it was time to test just how good his new-found aim was. Still speeding, he rolled down the window and pointed his gun back towards the geese, took one quick glance at them and then took five shots. One by one four of the geese dropped to the ground.

“I saw four drop,” Said Sam. “I don’t see the fifth one.”

Thump! The car slammed into the fifth being, in its full inky form stretching up from the lane and over the Impala. Sam could hear its black goo splattering on the roof of the car and down the windshield and down the window on his side of the car. The roof above him began dissolving when Castiel acted.

In a second the three of them were rolling on the ground on the other side of the shapeshifter. Castiel, being the one most prepared, leaped up and took his blade to the monster, slicing it neatly down the length of its body. The black ooze poured from the creature skin until it finally collapsed on top of the car.

“My Baby!” Dean was horrified at the sight of Sam’s quarter of the car dissolved away and coated with black liquid. He grabbed a branch and poked it at the mess on the car. “Sammy! Is it dead?”

“Yeah, Dean,” said Sammy. “It’s dead. Uh, Cas? Should we move all this to outside the bunker?”

“No!” insisted Cas. “The whole purpose of warding Eddie’s barn was to redirect beings searching for the bunker to the barn. It worked as it was supposed to. I’ll move everything back to the barn.”

A thought from Castiel and everything disappeared to reappear beside the barn. And a sixth monster, but with two heads and turned to salt, was standing nearby.

“Is this what those people were?” asked Eddie. He had come through the barn door to find out what Sam had called Castiel about and was immediately under the gushing black goo of one of the shapeshifters. The ‘head’ of the creature turned to salt the moment the first bit of goo touched Eddie’s skin. When the unaffected base of the body began growing a second ‘head,’ Eddie rushed over and turn the rest of the creature to salt.

“Finally, we can examine one of them.” Eddie touched below one of the monster’s heads, causing a liquid gap in the body and the head dropped to the ground. “It’s hollow.” He hit his fist against the body and chucks of salt broke away. It was hollow except for what looked like a string of body organs tethered on each side to its skin. Then looking into the hooded ‘face’ of the beast, he noticed two round lobes surrounded by a large circle of pores from which the ooze formed long tentacles.

“This one’s better,” said Sam, and Eddie turned around to see the black body laying over the Impala.

“Oooo, yeah! Much better.” Eddie kicked around the soil below the salt creature. “Uh, Sam? Is mine dead?”

“Yeah, it’s dead,” Sam replied. “Why?”

“It’s body is standing but it isn’t touching the ground.” Eddie stressed his point by running his hand between the salty body and the ground. The dead creature was suspended in the air.

Everyone’s attention turned toward the other creature, still laying over Dean’s car. Castiel pulled back the slick black skin to show the same organs as the other suspended in the body by the same tethers. The body was hollow and all the liquid was in the very thick skin.

“Soooo...,” Sam mused, “the organs make the poison and transfer it through those into the skin? Are they in the stuff they turn into, too?”

With a slight motion of his head, Castiel caused to bodies of the four geese to appear beside them. He sliced one open, exposing in its center the same black organs in the two shapeshifters. “There’s your answer. The bodies of the shapeshifters and the bodies they shape-shift into all form around the same organs.”

All four of the men jumped when the standing salt creature suddenly dropped to the ground.

Eddie looked back and forth between the two creatures. “I guess turning the one into salt kept it in position without any support. It should have flopped over like the one on the car.”

“Pee eew! This one’s beginning to stink,” commented Dean about the shapeshifter on his car. “What are we going to do with them?”

“I suppose we could save the salt body in the barn. And maybe slice out parts of the other shapeshifter’s body and stash them in a secure container,” suggested Eddie.

“The parts will have to be frozen,” added Sam. “Dean, do we have room in the deep freezer at home?”

“What?” shouted Dean. “You mean with the deer meat?”

“Dean, we haven’t hunted deer for a decade. What’s in that freezer right now is probably deadlier than this stuff is. Come on, let’s cut off pieces of this thing before it rots and have Cas transfer it to the freezer.”

Castiel popped the salt creature into the barn cat room in Eddie’s barn. And when Dean and Sam carved their choice cuts from the raw creature, they were transferred immediately into the deep freezer in the bunker.

“We’ll need to put a sign in there to identify what it is,” recommended Sam.

“Well, let’s do that before we forget,” said Dean, before he turned and was reminded that Baby was out of commission. He sadly shook his head.

“I have the funds to fix her,” Eddie assured him. “Also a good body shop, though it’s in Indiana.”

“Yeah, thanks Eddie,” Dean seemed a bit better about the situation. “Well, take Baby and us home for right now, Cas. What’ve you got to do yet, Eddie?”

“Turn these remains into water and head back home. When I left, two boys and three Ozians were trying to figure out how a frisbee works. Seems none of the five had ever thrown one before. I was laughing at them before I left. I suppose I should go back and help them.”


	38. Chapter 38

When Eddie returned home to Indiana, he saw that Captain Fyter had already learned and perfected throwing the frisbee in a graceful arc that returned it to his hands. A shirtless dragon-winged Victor was in the air trying to catch it, with encouragement from Vladimir below. The few times he did catch it brought cheers from the others.

Meanwhile, Scraps had her sewing fingers on and was working on Viktor’s shirt. “See, she explained to Eddie, “I overlap an inch down here and wider as it goes up until at the collar I stitched in two long Velcro strips. When Vik’s wings pop out, the velcro gives and the shirt opens without tearing. When he pulls his wings in, all he has to do is reach back to press the velcro back together.” She held up the completed shirt and Wogglebug nodded his approval.

Eddie recounted his adventure in Kansas and the professor had questions.

“So, did you check to see if these ‘eyes’ were connected directly to the organs?” Wogglebug asked.

“We didn’t check.”

“And did the ‘eyes’ have pupils or irises?”

“No, they were plan, kinda like a couple of whitish globes.”

“And I bet you didn’t find any separate drops of the creatures’ black goo. Am I right?”

“Uh, come to think of it, no!”

“I know how the creature operates then.” Professor Wogglebug elaborated: “Those aren’t eyes and the goo isn’t exactly a liquid meant to wash over the victim to dissolve it. What’s happening is, the pores around the ‘eyes’ are secreting long strips of flesh around the victim to keep it encased. They also hold in the radiation that the two globes emit over the victim that breaks it down. The only gap is on the ground and I recall you had said before there was always a black smudge on the ground. The ground was radiated. If you had given the body to me, I would probably be able to tell you why the salt one stayed levitated and how the organs create the body copies and the black skin that I consider to be bladders for the goo rather than the skin of a creature.”

“Wow!” said Eddie. “I’ll tell Castiel and the others. The creatures seem to be after the Winchesters. I don’t now why...”

“Dean and Sam have done something somewhere that has threatened them. They are protecting their kind.” Wogglebug returned to overseeing Scraps’ progress on Viktor’s clothes. “So, if you do something similar to his pants, he can produce a tail, too, and not tear the pants, right? That’s brilliant, Scraps!”

Eddie turned and phoned Castiel. “Hey, Castiel! I have a new place for the creatures’ bodies. Yeah, call Professor Wogglebug. He wants to study them. I think the Winchesters will be happy to be rid of the corpse in their icebox.

About then, Captain Fyter returned. He had left the boys in the yard to toss the frisbee between themselves. “They’re almost worn out,” he commented. “Shall we test their vocabulary now and see how much has sunk in?”

At Beryk and Anica’s sanitarium – the ‘Vam San’ – in St. Louis, Claire Novak had just arrived at the front door, a bit apprehensive, considering the last time she almost became vampire food. Sheriff Mills was not far behind her.

Anica met them at the front entrance. “Glad to see you two,” she said cheerfully. “We are really excited about the changes here and I especially want Claire’s okay.”

The first thing they notice upon entering was that the wall and panels between the lobby and the dining hall had been torn out. In its place was a waist-high solid wall topped with some cris-crossed slats giving it an outdoor garden effect. The long table had been replaced with several smaller ones and a permanent serving table sat just inside from the kitchen. Claire approved the change.

“And this you will really like!” Anica promised. She pushed open the double doors into what had been the iron lung hall. The devices were gone and couches, table lamps and a pool table were gathered together in the middle of the room. Two men were papering the wall in a flowery peach and rose design on a background of green leaves and light gray swirls. The tiled floor had already been carpeted in deep green.

“Guys, come here for a minute,” Anica called to the gray-eyed men and introduced them to the girls. “This is Hank. This is his brother Joseph. Beryx called them in from our base in Newark. They live here now and will be our grounds keepers. Thanks, guys!”

Anica directed them into the kitchen where a woman was peeling potatoes. “This is our cook, Monica from here in Missouri. She and the boys will be living here, along with three more that haven’t arrived yet. Everyone will be on Eddie’s blood mix and the healthy meals she prepares.”

“Does this mean two more for supper?” asked Monica.

Jody attempted to bow out, but Monica insisted they eat before driving back to Sioux Falls. Jody and Claire graciously accepted the invite and found themselves enjoying the meal and conversation with the residents.

During the meal, Jody noticed Beryx wasn’t there.

“He’s still in New Jersey, scouting for residents.” Anica said. “It’s hard to break vampires away from their superior stand over humans and get them to understand adapting to associating with them as equals.”

“So all vampires look down on humans?” Jody asked.

“Yeah,” piped up Hank. “Putting your food on an equal standing is absurd if you are addicted to consuming it. You can’t allow feeling sympathetic to humans if their blood is the sole source of your life.”

“Think of it this way,” added his brother Joseph. “Do you eat venison? Someone goes out among innocent deer and shoots one of them dead and drags away its carcass. Or compare the earlier set-up here with the trucks and iron-lungs with a cattle farm. Cow are kept in pens and fed specifically to fatten them up and one day some are herded into a van to be mass slaughtered. Explain that rationale to a cow. Oh, hey, sorry, we eat meat and you are made of, well, meat we like to eat.”

“But there ‘are’ vegetarians who reject eating meat,” asserted Claire.

“And here we are, the vegetarians of vampires,” finished Joseph.

The conversation moved on to other topics, including addition of hall cameras and how Anica can get help when problems arise with contrary vampires or unknowing vampire hunters.

The conversation was so pleasant, Jody and Claire decided to stay overnight in the guest rooms and have breakfast, too.

Monica served steak and eggs for breakfast and Hank and Joseph tore into them like lions on a gazelle. Claire and Jody looked over at Anica who just shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

“Hey!” Hank said to Claire while baring his fangs and sliding his tongue over one of them. “At least I still have good use for fangs when a good steak is served.”

“And if you ever come and one of the guests get out of line, just find me. I can protect you with these,” He held out his hand to show off an impressive set of claws.

Claire whipped out her dagger and held it up to Hank’s hand. “Mine’s bigger! I can take care of myself.”

“I believe you totally.” Hank grinned.

In New Jersey, Beryx walked down the dingy hall of a tenement’s third floor. The entire building housed only vampires and it smelled like it. No mealtime smells of Italian ravioli or Polish sausage. Just smells not unlike the medical wastes piled behind the illegal backroom clinics and drug dens of the surrounding poor neighborhood.

He addressed a group of six recruits in one of the rooms. It wasn’t difficult to do talk them into leaving this hell hole. Given the rampant diseases, drugs, and malnutrition in the area, most of the vampires were sickly from feeding off the local population. They all agreed to accompany him back to a promised better life in St. Louis.


	39. Chapter 39

Two weeks after their adventure in Brammerang, Dean and Sam were sitting in the library leafing through gray cotton-woven covered booklets that came in the mail. The books were thin, just a simple explanation of their gifts from Amazing Bob. A note that came with them said all was peaceful in the Tennessee town and Bob was enjoying passively watching the goings on of the townspeople and the stories heard from them on the bus trips he drove. On one special trip to a mall in Chattanooga, friends dragged him from shops to restaurants to other attractions, after which he enjoyed just sitting on a bench guarding their purchases and watching the people walk by.

“I pretty well figured out my power,” said Dean, peering through his book. “But Amazing Bob warned me twice to be very careful about what I aim at or I could greatly regret it.”

Sam was engrossed in his own book. “Hmmmm.....He says I’d do better with my skills as a sensitive if I spent more time with the elf Daniel. How’d Bob even know about Daniel? Oh, yeah. He’s God, just of...”

“Another universe,” Dean joined in.

Anica sat in the san in St. Louis, paging through a similar booklet for her family. With it was a book for Viktor by name, even though the God was not there when Vladimir named him. She opened Viktor’s book to find a legal document tucked behind the cover. “Oh my,” she mumbled to herself. “This all should go to Eddie. Why would Amazing Bob mail it here?” She looked at the address on the package it came in and mused again on how it had been addressed to her specifically -- Anica Tomesku -- the one in the family that had never been to Brammerang. She proceeded to read both books more closely.

Her son Vladimir was home for a visit along with his new friend Viktor. They and Beryx were in the newly refurnished lounge. So was Claire Novak, here for a promised check-up on progress made at the ‘san.’ Right now Claire was beating Hank handily at pool and Joseph was enthusiastically chiding him on how a mere girl was beating him. Castiel, Monica and a couple other redeemed vampires watched on from nearby couches.

The pleasant hubbub was broken by a frustrated Viktor marching out of the lounge and out the back door with ash fluttering about in the air about him. Right behind him hurried Vladimir and next an angry Beryx. “He did it again!” he said as explanation to Anica as he passed by and out the door.

She stepped into the lounge and saw the singed lamp. Someone had upset the boy, most likely Beryx who was already on a rant about Viktor’s early mishap – another spark inducing event that actually hadn’t harmed anything. At that time Beryx talked about keeping the boy in a square of cement blocks outdoors.

Castiel approached her with a mystified expression. “What happened?”

Anica did not know exactly what happened and directed Castiel out the back door to find out.

Outdoors, a line of tree tops were aflame. In the pile of cement blocks behind the building, Vladimir was standing with his fangs and claws out, defying his father. “Well I’m staying out here, too” I’m just a mangy animal, too!”

Castiel phoned Eddie in Indiana and soon Eddie popped up beside him.

“Thanks for calling, Castiel,” Eddie said. “Can you get me up near the flames?”

A moment later Eddie and Castiel were on an upper tree branch among the flames. Eddie pushed a blanket of oxygen-starved air through the flames and snuffed them out. From this vantage point both looked for the dragon boy but could not see him, so Castiel transported both of them back to the building.

Anica was shouting at Beryx with full fury. “You told the child he had to stay in the cement blocks and not in the house? Ber, that’s horrible! You need to look at Vik’s book. That poor boy spent his whole childhood as a work animal for that witch Hannah. She wouldn’t treat him like a human or even let him take human form. He never saw the inside of her house ‘cause he slept in the fire pit outdoors! And you tell him he’s no better than to sleep among the concrete chunks outdoors!”

To press the point, Eddie grabbed a towel and held it in Beryx’s face. “See, Beryx, a towel.” Eddie slapped the towel. “Now it’s a fire-retardant towel. I can fire-proof everything in the building: the lamp, the chairs, the wall paper...”

“Actually, Eddie,” said Anica, “safety isn’t the problem. It’s a concrete and brick building with fire walls and a sprinkler system. Ber’s just thinking with his ego.”

Castiel had disappeared during the browbeating and popped back with Captain Fyter from Oz. “Viktor is out there somewhere.” He waved his hand across in the direction of the woods. “He’s scared and I know you’re good with him. Can you find him?”

“I surely can,” said the metal man. He stood quietly in front of the woods, listening and watching. Vladimir came up to him and handed him a donut. “I take it your buddy likes donuts,” said the captain. “You’re a smart boy Vlad.” After a few minutes he said, “Found him!” and ran into the woods and out of sight.

Viktor was miserable, curled up at the base of an old oak on the opposite end of the woods. He had in frustration shot out sparks twice in the house and then outdoors set the trees on fire. Nobody would want him back at the san now. Not Vladimir, not Anica, probably not even Eddie would want him. He deserved the cement blocks out in the weather.

He heard Captain Fyter’s footsteps and hid his face in anticipation of the worst. But when he peeked up over his fingers he spied the donut hanging from the tip of the captain’s sword.

“Hey, sport! Your buddy’s really worried about you.” Captain Fyter sat down with him. “I’m here for you. So is Vladimir’s mom and the other guys in the san. And Eddie’s here so you can go home if you want. Everyone is mad at Beryx, so they won’t let him near you when we go back. ‘You want to go back now?”

Viktor nodded.

“You gonna fly? You wanna ride on my back? Or shall we walk back?”

Viktor opted for walking back through the woods with the metal man and off they set for the san.

Beau, the metal man, noted the back of Viktor’s shirt. “Hey! Scraps cut your shirt just right. You wings didn’t tear it.” He stuck the velcro strips together for the boy. “Yeah, you’ve got a lot of friends, Viktor.”

Everyone but Beryx were waiting for Viktor and Beau behind the sanitarium. Vladimir had, at his mother’s insistence, gathered his and Viktor’s belongings for the trip back to Indiana.

Anica handed Amazing Bob’s book for Viktor to Eddie. “This was sent to me, but I’m sure you were intended for its final destination,” she said. “Take Vlad’s book, too. You can be pseudo-dad for some more time. It may be a while until Ber adjusts fully, but he will.”

Castiel sent Eddie, Vladimir and Viktor back to Indiana and Claire returned to the pool table. “Okay, shorty,” she said to Hank, “I’m going to finish you off.”

Hank was no shorter than Claire, but he was quick on the rebound. “You think of me like that now, but someday you’ll see me like this.” With that he stepped back to the wall and with his fingers scooched himself up until he was a few inches taller than her and grinned.

Anica across the room saw him and shouted, “Hank! Get your vampire butt down off that wall now! If you damaged my new wallpaper, you’re in trouble!”

Now red-faced, Hank looked back and checked the wallpaper. “Sorry, Mrs. Tomesku. The wallpaper looks okay.”

Joseph was laughing so hard at his brother he fell back against the pool table. “And Pow!” he said. “Cassanova gets shot down again!”

With just the slightest smirk on her face, Claire turned back to the table to take her next shot.

As soon as they appeared at home, Eddie turned the boys loose to play until mealtime. He sat on a couch in the livingroom to read through the boys’ books.

He found the document Anica had seen in the front of Viktor’s book. A birth certificate for the boy, announcing that ‘Viktor Timms’ was born January 9, 2006 in Brammerang. It announced that the mother was ‘Hannah’ of Brammerang in Polk County, Tennessee and that the father was ‘Edward Timms’ of Wabash County, Indiana, with the informant being ‘A. Bob.’ The certificate had the official stamp of Polk County and date of ‘1/9/06.’

It didn’t seem that could be, so Eddie called the health department in Benton and asked for confirmation. The clerk confirmed that, yes, the record was there in the 2006 book of births in the county, written neatly between the birth chronologically before and the one after. No doubt, it had been entered during January 2006, twelve years before the arrival of the Winchester brothers, and later Eddie, in Brammerang. Impossible, but obviously not for Amazing Bob, creator of another universe. For all legal aspects, the child Viktor Timms was Eddie’s son by birth.

A phone call from Dean broke the moment. “Hey! Did you find it? Cas said Anica said you’re Vik’s daddy! Congratulations!” 

“Yeah, congratulations!” could be heard from Sam in the background and “From me, too!” from Castiel.

“I wonder how Bob came up with the date,” mused Eddie. ‘Would that be the date Viktor hatched?”

Vladimir and Viktor came to see who Eddie was talking to so excitedly over the phone. He handed them the document. “This is Viktor’s birth certificate. It says I’m Viktor’s daddy.”

“Oh, wow, Viktor,” said Vladimir after a few moments of study. “You were born the same day as me!”


	40. Chapter 40

AFTERWORD

First, thank you all for reading this series, ‘An Apostle of the Lord.’

Second, the story continues in the sequel ‘The Supernatural World of Vladimir and Victor.’

\-----------------------------------------------------

‘An Apostle of the Lord’ was originally intended to be a twelve-chapter spoof of Castiel’s announcement of being An Angel of the Lord in the show ‘Supernatural.’ But the story began to take a life of its own. And the characters that I added insisted on being developed more as each chapter was written. Originally, none of the vampires at the sanitarium were supposed to survive, and none of the characters in and around Brammerang were supposed to survive. Amazing Bob was supposed to remain unmoved by the fate of the townspeople or what our heroes had accomplished.

Here is the character roster as it stands now. You may need this, since I’m not planning on introducing them all over again or rehashing their abilities. The readers of ‘The Supernatural World of Vladimir and Viktor’ will find them here:

Edwin Timms (“Eddie”): the current incarnation of the core soul which had once incarnated as one of the Lord’s apostles, Timothy (not the one in the Bible). He can drive out demons, and move human souls, and has the power to perform miracles that involve transforming elements and moving water and air. He can reach into Heaven and communicate directly with his previous incarnations (expect the introduction of past incarnations Shebbeth and King Erin). But for a few exceptions, those who witness his miracles soon forget Eddie’s involvement in them (exceptions are Vlad, Vik, Castiel, Dean, Sam, Jody, Claire and any Ozian). Besides owning property in Wabash County, Indiana; he has a barn near the Winchester bunker in Kansas that is used to misdirect entities trying to find the bunker, one in Utah near a portal to Hell, and one in Tennessee near a portal into the Magical Realm.

Viktor Timms: After living most of his life as an outdoor working animal for a witch, he is a dragon boy now living in human form as Edwin’s 12-year-old son. In human form he can still produce dragon wings or start fires.

Vladimir Tomesku: A 12-year-old gray-eyed vampire, recently turned and recently protected from bloodlust and the sun. Living as a ward of Eddie Timms. Legend says a human born to vampires are destined to become a vampire killer, so much is expected of Vladimir.

Beryx and Anica Tomesku: Grey-eyed vampires recently protected from bloodlust and the sun. They are Vladimir’s parents and run a recovery center, nicknamed the Vam San, for vampires in St. Louis. The residents are protected from human bloodlust and the sun only if they keep up their daily drink of a special blue solution. There are two vampire types living at the sanitarium: the ‘native’ vampires, who are unusually strong; and the Carpathian ‘gray-eye’ vampires, who also can mesmerize others, can scaled walls against gravity, and are normally extremely sensitive to the sun. Employees include ‘native’ Monica and ‘gray-eye’ brothers Hank and Joseph.

Dean Winchester: A demon hunter with the skill of supernatural aim. He can hit a target, even if the target moves after he shoots. He lives at the Men of Letters bunker near Lebanon, Kansas.

Sam Winchester: A demon hunter with the skill of a sensitive. He can sense whether a being nearby is human or supernatural and if it is dead or living and friend or foe, before actually meeting them. He lives at the Men of Letters bunker near Lebanon, Kansas.

Castiel: An angel who has been assigned as protector of the Winchesters and Eddie Timms. He can immediately transport himself or anything else to anywhere, heal humans, and transfer thoughts.

Sheriff Jody Mills: A sheriff of Sioux Falls, South Dakota and a demon hunter, providing a home to several wards who assist her demon-hunting activities. She monitors the Vam San.

Claire Novak: A demon hunter living with Sheriff Mills who also monitors the Vam San.

Scraps: A living patchwork woman of Oz. Fast friend and sitter for Vladimir and Viktor.

Captain Fyter (“Beau”): A metal man (magical, not mechanical) of Oz. Assigned to teach Vladimir and Viktor fighting and tactical skills.

Nick Chopper: A metal man of Oz, woodcutter by trade. Available as back-up for Captain Fyter.

Professor Wogglebug: Instructor and researcher at the university in the Emerald City. Creator of pills that give people the abilities of languages, history, math, and countering forgetting spells; and the blue solution that protects vampires. He is in charge of Vladimir and Viktor’s education.

Glinda the Good: Ruler of the Quadling Country of Oz and highly proficient in the art of magic. Friend of Eddie Timms, with a past life tie to be introduced.

Queen Ozma: Fairy ruler of all of Oz from the Emerald City and a close friend of Glinda the Good. Rides a wooden steed named Tipetarius. Her household is maintained by Jellia Jamb.

Amazing Bob: The Creator God of another universe on vacation in this universe, who keeps in contact with the Timms, the Tomeskus, and the Winchesters. (“Chuck” is our Creator God.)


End file.
